An Angel's Vengeance
by Kizmet
Summary: [UltX] Random Walk 4, Descent: How Angel came to hold a place in Remy's nightmares. One Wild Night: Spiderman, Angel, muggers, oh my! Government Intervention: Remy and Angel's conflict comes to the attention of the Ultimates.
1. Descent: 1 of 6

**Descent**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 1 

As the watcher shifted there was a slight sound, the rustle of feathers, the scrape of metal against metal, it was hard to tell. Ice blue eyes with the predatory sharpness of a hawk never left his prey. 

He would have liked to say it all started with the demon-child below him but in his heart of hearts he knew it had started almost a year before he'd laid eyes on the boy. It started with an idea and a decision. 

Seventeen years old, staring in the mirror seeing the reflection of an angel, he'd thought there should be something more to his life than learning to take over his father's corporation. He'd decided to be a hero. 

An angel sent to Earth to right the wrongs. It had sounded great in theory and for the first few months it had worked in practice. A few high flying rescues, people staring up at him in worship, they didn't see a mutant when they looked at him they saw a miracle. Classically sculpted features, crystal clear blue eyes, slightly wavy golden hair and of course, huge, driven-snow wings, the stark, absolute whiteness of his feathers catching any light, giving them an almost glowing appearance. He wanted to be an angel in deed as well as appearance. 

And then he'd met them; six mutants like him and nothing like him living in an abandoned subway tunnel on the ragged outskirts of society: 

Chloe possessing acid sweat, an avid reader and a college student before her mutation had manifested and forced her to flee her life and the angry mob her former friends and neighbors had become. She was the one who had given them the name Morlocks in place of the human last names that no longer seem to apply. 

Cat with a mouthful of sharp, carnivorous teeth, gold-flecked hazel eyes with slit pupils and a supple flowing way of moving that made other people feel like prey. The quiet one, he stuck to the shadows, seemed to have little use for the group, but he'd been the one to find both the little ones and it was him that they turned to when the nightmares came. 

Flick disrupted electric currents. At first glance she wasn't too different from his classmates, long brown hair, pulled into a ponytail, clothes that had only begun to turn ragged. She still had a habit of rattling on about football games and how her boyfriend, the linebacker, was doing. Then she'd remember herself and go silent, remember that she had to watch the games from the roof a building overlooking the stadium because if she'd gone in the lights, the sound system, the electronic score board and all the appliances in the concession stands would have died and maybe people wouldn't have realized she was to blame, it hadn't happened yet anyway, but normal life in the modern world didn't exist without electricity and electricity didn't exist around her. So she'd left, unable to control her abilities and unwilling to disrupt their lives. 

Danny, gray skinned, blocky in form and ponderous in movement. His presence was as solid and stable as the granite he resembled. His past was a mystery. His dreams and goals unknown, Danny simply was. 

Then there was Anna-Marie Jones who sat in the corner and rocked, her arms with their long, clawed fingers wrapped around her waist. They'd learned her name from her driver's license. They saw that she ate and didn't freeze to death on cold nights because she was like them, but for the most part they ignored her, because the knowledge that they could have ended up like her was too close to the surface. 

And finally there were the little ones, born mutated and abandoned shortly afterwards. Cat had found them and the group had taken them into their hearts. 

Sarah was five and three fourths, as she'd proudly tell anyone who asked. Bones protruded painfully through her pale skin, but she bore it with the ease of someone who had never known different. 

Michelle, Mike for short, was ten and beginning to realize that a world existed beyond her familiar tunnels and that with her horns and scaly, bronze skin, she wasn't welcome there. 

They needed food and blankets, a dry warm place to sleep, new cloths and better access to facilities, but a bitter pride kept them from accepting all but the most urgently needed items from Warren. 

They need psychiatric help and to learn how to control their powers. They needed friends and family who hadn't turned on them. They needed a world where they were accepted rather than feared for things outside of their control. They needed so many things that Warren didn't even know how to begin looking for. 

They didn't need a hero, but he couldn't quit coming back. Doing his best to help despite their wary, ingracious reaction to his offerings. Society saw him as a miracle and them as monsters but deep down Warren knew there was no real difference between them. So he helped them as they helped Anna-Marie and tried not to think about lucky breaks and how things might have been as much as possible. 

Now, looking back across the years he wondered what had become of them. If they'd suffered as he'd suffered. 

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	2. Descent: 2 of 6

**Descent**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 2 

Four years ago... 

"Hey Sarah," Warren said, his wings tucked close to his back in the uncomfortable confines of the tunnels, awkwardly trying to keep them clear of both the floor and only marginally less grimy walls. 

"Didya bring my coloring books?" the little girl asked eagerly. 

"They're in my bag," Warren replied. 

"Good," Sarah said. "I was afraid we'd leave before you got here and I didn't know if you would be able to find us in the other place or if they'd have coloring books there." 

"You're leaving?" Warren asked. "Did something happen?" 

Sarah nodded, "Everyone's all excited. Flick says maybe she'll be able to go home, I thought here was home, but everybody wants to go to the new place. Cat says we'll be happy there, I said I'm happy here. Mike's all goofy 'bout Remy. Don't see why he's just a boy; he doesn't even have cool teeth like Cat. Boys are icky, that's what Flick says I'm supposed to say till I'm at least twelve. Twelve is awfully old, I need one more finger to count that far." 

"One more?" Warren asked, hoping her counting was at fault. 

Sarah held up her left hand, proudly showing him the long bone spur growing between her third and fourth fingers. "Chloe wants to pull it out, but I wouldn't let her. She says if I fight with Mike while I've got it I'll be in big trouble. I just got out of big trouble since I colored in Chloe's book. It wasn't that good of a book it only had one picture in the front then a bunch of boring words." 

"You said there was a new boy here?" Warren asked interrupting the five-year-old's stream of consciousness style conversation. He wanted to ask what was wrong with the new boy to bring him here, but Sarah wouldn't understand and even if she had it would have been a particularly tactless question. 

"Remy," Sarah confirmed. "Well he's not here, here. Not now, here. He comes and goes and now he's gone. Us going was his idea. Everybody likes it, but me, I like here, it's home. His nice place sounds nice but Flick'll go away and I won't see her anymore and Chloe says she won't go away, but Mike doesn't believe her. Mike says if someone can pretend to be normal they go away because no one wants to be with freaks 'less they have to. What's a freak? And what's normal?" 

Warren waited, hoping Sarah would prattle on without his needing to answer. 

Sarah rolled her eyes. "I hate when grown-ups don't answer my questions," she said. 

"Well, um, Mike shouldn't call people freaks," Warren began awkwardly. "Mutants are people like us, because of my wings or your bones or the way Flick makes the lights turned off." 

"And normal means you don't have neat stuff like that?" Sarah concluded. "They're boring." 

"Sure," Warren said, relieved. 

"Wings is here!" Sarah yelled running ahead into the Morlocks' camp. "He brought my color books!" 

Warren turned the corner and stopped in his tracks, the Morlocks' normally orderly little camp was a hive of chaotic activity, everything was in the process of being torn down and stowed. 

Flick offered him a friendly wave from across the length of the stretch of tunnel. Cat glanced up suspiciously from the makeshift tent he was folding, and then went back to what he was doing. Danny and Mike didn't bother to acknowledge him. Chloe set aside the box she was packing and came over to talk to Warren. 

"We don't need your help anymore," she told him. After a pause she added. "We've appreciated it, but we're going to get real help. Not just charity. You don't have to come here any more." 

"I heard," Warren said, wondering darkly what this Remy had done to win their trust so quickly when after months of effort he'd only gained a grudging acceptance from the group. "So you're all just packing it up and taking off. How do you know this guy is for real?" 

"He's living proof," Chloe said defensively. "He's in control of his powers, I mean complete control." 

"And that proves what?" Warren asked. 

"That there's hope," Chloe said holding up hands covered with gardening gloves, which were already starting to show discolored patches from the acid produced by her body. 

"And what if his powers are just easier to control?" Warren asked. 

"He's like us!" Mike exclaimed angrily. "He's got demon eyes and he says when his powers came he couldn't control them, but he got help. He doesn't have to live in some stinking sewer to hide from the upworlders like us. He doesn't let them push him around..." 

"And Remy doesn't have to worry about what he might accidentally do to them either," Flick said quietly. "I could go home, it's only been two years, I could catch up, have my life back. I don't think Mark's gotten serious about anyone else..." 

"It'd be better than here," Cat said with certainty. "Mike and Sarah would have a real place, Anna-Marie could get some help. We'd have a reason for being." 

"What about you Danny?" Warren asked. "What's he sold you on?" 

Slowly Danny turned to look at the little group. After a moment he said. "One place is as good as another. Might as well try it." 

"And what if he's leading you into trouble," Warren argued. "You can't just trust everyone who wanders in here." 

"We don't trust you Angel," Danny said. "But Remy's like us." 

"The Eloi don't look at him and see something to love," Chloe said. "He's had to live like us. He won't betray us." 

"And I would?" Warren demanded irritably. "I've been doing my best for you for more than half a year, doesn't that prove anything?" 

"I like you Wings," Sarah said reaching up to stroke shining feathers. 

Warren gave her a quick smile. "What about the rest of you? Doesn't history count for anything? What do you know about this Remy? You've known him for what? A month, a week? And you're ready to pick up and leave on his say so?" 

Cat and Chloe traded an uncertain look. 

"Shut up about Remy," Mike yelled. "You've never even met him." 

"Let me meet him," Warren challenged. 

"We'll trust our own judgment thanks," Chloe said dismissively. 

"Let me check him out," Warren argued. "I've got the resources to do that, and what's it going to cost you? A couple of days?" 

Danny's look said one way or another made no difference to him. 

"A few days wouldn't hurt," Chloe said uncertainly. "Just to give us a few more chances to talk with him." 

"So you got a last name? Is he from around here?" Warren asked. 

"Just Remy, that's all he told us," Chloe said frowning. 

"He talked funny," Sarah volunteered. 

"It's an accent stupid," Mike pouted. "It's sexy." 

"Yeah right, chere," Sarah said mockingly. 

"He's French?" Warren guessed as Mike lowered her horns and glared at Sarah, who stuck out her tongue in response. 

"He's Cajun," Danny said matter of a factly. 

"It is sexy," Flick said. "Too bad he's such a kid." 

Warren gave the high schooler a surprised look. "Kid?" he asked. 

"Remy's like thirteen," Flick said. 

"Twelve," Cat amended. 

"Okay, now I'm convinced something screwy is going on," Warren said. "You're up ending your lives on the say so of a grade-school aged kid?" 

Warren hadn't been able to kind out much else about the boy beyond a simple physical description of his appearance and powers. The Morlocks' scarcity of information and easy trust in him set off every alarm bell in Warren's head, but believing that a child was responsible for some sort of nefarious plot wasn't easy either. In the end all he could do was go home and phone a private investigator who'd had dealings with his father and hope the man's expertise extended beyond digging into the past of would-be blackmailers. 

****** ****** ****** 

Warren rushed back to his dorm room at lunch, eagerly checking his answering machine and email for a progress report. As he read through the email he found, he stripped off his jacket, shirt and the harness that kept his wings hidden from his teachers and classmates. 

Free of their restraints Warren's snowy wings stretched to their full extent, filling the room, pin-feathers brushing the ceiling of for a few moments, before tucking themselves neatly behind him, fluttering a little as he read. 

The PI had found a birth certificate for Remy St. Just, born in New Orleans with red on black eyes, a social services folder on the boy from an office in Baton Rouge, which went to great lengths to down play the concerns his teachers had reported and finally a missing persons report. Warren wondered how hard it could have been to locate an eleven year-old runaway with one of a kind eyes and the ability to make things blow up. 

Harder than it sounded apparently because somehow the boy had gotten from Baton Rouge to Philadelphia in just over a year a half without the police spotting him once. 

"Think about this," Warren told himself sternly. "Someone's helping or maybe using the kid. That's how he's traveling. They might have kidnapped him despite what the police concluded about his disappearance, or he might have gone with them willingly. Doesn't sound like his parents were any sort of prize and it's not like the police really tried to find him till almost a year after he disappeared. I wonder who lit a fire under their butts? Maybe it had something to do with his father getting murdered. Doesn't do me any good either way, I need to know who he's with now and what their intentions are. There's just a lot of nothing on him after Baton Rouge." 

Warren called the PI and asked him to focus on more recent information about the boy and any associates. 

After finishing his sandwich Warren stood, frowning down at his harness with loathing. It hurt, his wings could fold very close to his back, but it wasn't comfortable, and his cover story about back problems to explain his deformed appearance made him a little of an outcast among his classmates. To make things worse he always felt claustrophobic when he couldn't spread his wings, even wandering around the private boarding school's spacious grounds he felt closed in by the leather bands cutting into his wings. 

Warren snorted, a mysterious winged being swooping down to save people from danger was a miracle, but Warren Worthington III with wings was just another freak, no different from the Morlocks even thought he hid behind a costume and his family's money instead of in the tunnels beneath the city. 

Walking across campus he waved to one of his classmates, the other boy looked startled, Warren sighed. Two years ago his wings had been small, featherless, useless, easily hidden and almost forgotten. Back then he'd been outgoing and popular. Then over summer break he'd gone through a growth spurt. He'd only gained an inch or two in height, but his wing-span had doubled, bring it to a grand total of twelve feet from tip to tip and his feathers grew in, adding considerably to the bulk of his wings. The best tailor in the world couldn't have hidden them completely. Warren had been depressed and resentful. At first he'd wanted to cut them off, but the muscles in his back had still been developing, altering to accommodate his wings and the doctors had wanted to wait until that had stabilized before operating on him. While they waited for that to happen Warren had been shipped off to a new school. Only by the dint of intensive pleading, he'd escaped being sent to Europe. Angry at fate and bitter about leaving his friends behind Warren had been withdrawn and ill tempered, doing his worst to make his transition to the new school difficult for everyone involved. 

And then he'd flown and everything had changed. His parents had been startled and maybe a little disappointed when he'd informed them that he was keeping his wings, but they'd been supportative and happy that he'd finally overcome the black mood he'd been in for over a year at that point. Not long after that he'd begun his efforts as a superhero. 

The one thing he couldn't change was the first impression he'd made on his classmates. Sometimes he thought about asking his parents if he could switch schools again, but that would mean leaving the Morlocks behind and Warren couldn't quite bring himself to abandon them. 

He'd never dreamed that one day they'd decide to pack up and leave him behind. 

****** ****** ****** 

Upon his next visit to the tunnels Warren found that Remy had returned and the little group's enthusiasm for his plans had returned with him. 

Remy was helping Mike pack when Warren caught his first glimpse of the boy. Seeing him only reinforced Warren's already divided opinion of him. On one hand what he'd learned of Remy's background made him sympathetic toward the younger mutant, but Warren was convinced that something underhanded was going on and Remy was the piped piper leading the Morlocks to their doom. 

In person Remy shouldn't have been an impressive individual, he was still gaunt from his time on the streets and graceless in a way that was typical of an adolescent trying to adapt to a rapid growth spurt. Like the more human appearing Morlocks Remy's skin had the paleness of someone who didn't spend much time in the sun and long reddish-brown hair that continually seemed to be falling into the red on black eyes that branded him as a mutant. 

Warren could see how the boy could be mistaken for a demon as easily as he was mistaken for an angel. Warren knew better, it wasn't the strange color of Remy's eyes that disturbed him; it was the intensity burning in them. 

When Remy saw Warren he set aside what he was doing and came over to confront the winged mutant. "So yo're de one tellin' dese nice people not to trus' me, ney?" he asked glaring up at the older boy. "Yo' want dem to stay down here, trapped in dese tunnels?" 

"No," Warren said. "But I don't want some cocky, know-it-all kid getting them killed because he didn't have the experience to recognize when he was being used." 

"M. Essex saved me!" Remy spat. "I was scared. I couldn' control m' powers. I'd already killed two people an' I couldn' stop. I would of killed every person who came near me till somebody 'ventually killed me. He came, m' powers didn' hurt him, he gave me a safe place, he helped me deal wid dis mutant t'ing. He ain't usin' me! What de hell could I do dat he couldn'?" 

"I'm sorry Remy," Warren found himself saying. "I didn't mean to insult you, but I don't know this Essex. How can I trust him like you do? I just want to be sure the Morlocks don't get hurt. 

"Dey are hurtin'," Remy said. "It hurts bein' scared all de time, of yourself, of everyone dat might want to hurt yo' cause of what yo' be. Dey look at Mike and dey call her a demon. Dey called me a demon too. Sittin' in dat room wid Richard's dead body I started t'inkin' he be right, dat I should of let him kill me. Den Essex come, he tol' me what I was, he made me so I was safe to be 'round. He made it so I didn' have to be scared no more. He can do de same for dem." 

"I'd feel more comfortable if I could meet him myself," Warren said. 

"D'accord," Remy replied. "Yo'll see, yo'll like him." 

Warren nodded, feeling certain that he would. 

"But I like it here!" Sarah yelled, her raised voice carrying across the camp. 

"That's because you're a stupid baby and no one cares what you think!" Mike yelled back. 

"I am not a baby!" Sarah screamed throwing herself at the older girl. "You're a big jerk!" 

"Little baby gonna throw a tantrum cause she can't have her way?" Mike taunted, holding Sarah off with a hand against her forehead. 

"Knock it off, both of you!" Cat yelled, bounding across the area. 

Sarah slashed at her tormentor with the sharp bone-spur protruding from her hand. 

Mike yelped snatching her bleeding arm to her chest. 

Before Sarah could press her advantage Cat picked her up by the collar of her sweatshirt. "I said enough," he growled and Sarah seemed to wilt. 

"She cut me!" Mike exclaimed. 

Chloe took a quick look at the horned girl's arm. "It's hardly more than a scratch and you did ask for it. Get someone to wrap it up so you don't get infect and stop whining. As for you Sarah, that bone comes out now." 

"But I like it," Sarah complained half-hearted. 

"Should of thought of that before you used it as a weapon," Chloe said. "Don't pretend I didn't warn you." 

Remy took Mike's arm, "Come 'long chere. I'll fix yo' right up," he said and she smiled adoringly at him. "You shouldn' let de petite rile yo' up like dat. She's jus' a chile." 

"I won't be able to count eleven anymore," Sarah was earnestly explaining to Cat, Warren and Chloe. 

"I'll let you count on my fingers," Warren said. "Then you'll be able to count all the way to twenty, forty if we used our toes." 

"I'm not supposed to take my shoes off," Sarah told him seriously. "There's bad stuff on the ground." 

"Plus you loose them," Cat interjected. 

"Okay, no toes," Warren replied. "We'll have to make Cat and Chloe let us use their fingers." 

Sarah giggled, "Danny and Anna-Marie would work better, they don't move so much. Anna-Marie has long fingers and they're sharp, I got cut trying to hold her hand. It got better though." 

Remy carefully cleaned and bound Mike's cut, paying it much more attention than the injury called for, much to the girl's delight. Danny rolled his eyes at the pair and went back to patiently coaxing Anna-Marie to eat her dinner. 

"Remy, when can I meet your friend Essex?" Warren asked. 

"He don' 'xpect me back for 'nother couple of days," Remy said. "Yo' can come wid me den. I'll be makin' shor he's ready for guests. Den we bot' come back an' help de Morlocks to make de move." 

"I look forward to it," Warren replied. 

****** ****** ****** 

Warren returned to his dorm room to find another update from the PI he'd hired, this one warning him that a boy matching Remy St. Just's description had been mentioned in connection with the disappearance of three teenaged mutants. 

Warren assumed Remy had simply taken them to Essex for assistance with their powers and thought nothing more of it that night. 

The next morning he reread the report and started wondering about why the teens would have left without telling their, by all accounts, concerned and caring parents where they were going. 

While he was sitting in third period, not listening to his teacher's lecture, it occurred to Warren that there'd been no mention of the teens having any problems with their powers. 

At lunch he called the PI and got a confirmation that none of the three had a reason to need Essex's help, in fact they'd all been passing as normal humans, the mutant link hadn't come to light until after their disappearance. 

By the time classes ended for the day Warren couldn't imagine what he'd been thinking when he'd started trusting Remy. The boy hadn't really told him anything he hadn't known before. Hearing it from Remy's own lips was convincing, but it shouldn't have been that convincing. 

By dinnertime Warren's earlier suspicions that Remy was somehow manipulating the Morlocks into trusting him had returned with a vengeance. 

His original plan, before meeting Remy, had been to spend as much time with the boy as possible. To question him and learn his associates' true intentions toward the Morlocks, but after getting a taste of Remy's abilities all that changed. Now Warren wanted to keep his distance from the demon-eyed child in hopes of meeting this Essex with his mind free of Remy's influence. 

There was no way to evaluate the man's sincerity through interrogating Remy, because when the boy explained things there was no room for judgment, only faith. 

Warren spent the week constantly on edge, snapping at classmates and teachers alike, unable to escape the thought of the Morlock's falling deeper and deeper under Remy's spell, perhaps irrevocably so, while he avoided the source of their danger. 

A harsh, pragmatic side of him urged Warren to simply eliminate the boy, thus freeing the Morlocks of his heart-twisting influence. He couldn't do it though, whatever threat Remy represented he was still a twelve-year-old child. When he thought about Remy's age Warren started wondering about how effective brainwashing really was or looking up how Stockholm syndrome worked. And then he'd start thinking that he was thinking too hard, why bother with complex explanations like that when he could be blaming it on the fact that sixth graders were rarely renown for their good judgment. 

When the time came Warren descended into the tunnels, resolved to minimize his contact with Remy even while using the boy as a guide. 

"Yo' ain't been 'round much, t'ought mebbe yo' were backin' out on me," Remy greeted him. "Mebbe yo' getting' bored wid de generous benefactor role." 

"You thought wrong," Warren said. 

"So where yo' been?" Remy asked. 

"School kept me busy," Warren said, wishing he were a better liar. "Mid-terms, you know how it is." 

Remy gave the older mutant a dark look. "Non, I don'," he said. 

Warren winced. "I'm here now, when I said I'd be, so what difference does it make?" he asked. 

"Because yo' ain't like us," Remy said. "Your wings don' change dat. Yo' ain't got no business decidin' what's bes' for dese people, yo' ain't been here. I have." 

"So does that mean I don't get to meet your leader?" Warren asked sarcastically. "Are you hiding something?" 

"Non," Remy said. "M. Essex be interested in de well bein' of all mutants. He like meetin' yo' an' yo'll see, yo' got rien to be 'pious of." 

"Lead the way," Warren said. 

He was surprised when Remy headed deeper into the tunnels. About twenty minutes after leaving the Morlock camp Remy paused and checked his watch. " 'Nother ten minutes," he told Warren slouching against the wall and settling in for the wait. 

The older mutant made himself as comfortable as possible, crouching with his wings half spread to balance himself and he realized yet another thing he hated about the harness; with his wings secured to his back his center of gravity was off. Some days he just wanted to say the hell with it, cut slits in the back of his shirt and let everyone know what he was regardless of the consequences. Then he thought about the Morlocks living in abandoned subway tunnels, shunned by society and he put the harness on for another day of keeping up pretenses. 

Remy straightened and right on time a swirling maelstrom of blackness opened in the air before him. A cold, malevolent wind came off the portal and Warren jumped back from it with a flap of his wings. 

"Yo' wanted to come," Remy challenged, stepping into the portal, apparently unaffected by the feeling of impending doom that it invoked in Warren. Gulping softly and tucking his wings close to his sides he followed Remy. 

The portal spat him out into a coldly functional room. Remy was waiting for him with a tall, forbidding man in a vaguely old fashion suit. 

"Dis be Angel M. Essex," Remy said presenting him. "He wanted to meet yo'." 

"I am pleased you brought him, child," Essex said absently patting Remy's shoulder as his eyes coldly dissected Warren. "You've done very well, I know going out troubles you." 

"Non, not anymore," Remy replied smiling happily. "Know yo're lookin' out for me. Rien scares me now." 

"Proper English," Essex reprimanded without feeling. 

"Nothing frightens me," Remy said carefully. Warren wondered how the boy could be oblivious to the cold clinical menace rolling off the man. He wanted nothing more than to turn and run, but the portal was gone, he didn't know where he was and he didn't think showing weakness in front of this creature would be a good idea. 

Best to act like Remy had sold him on Essex, smile, agree to anything the man said then go home, grab the Morlocks and run like hell. "Thank God, they were already packed," Warren thought giddily. 

"No," Warren reminded himself. He was a hero. Cat, Chloe and Danny were tough. They could stand and fight. Still he'd never seen any one with as cold of eyes as Essex. He'd never had anyone look at him as if he were so totally insignificant before. 

"Remy, your scores on your last exercise were unsatisfactory," Essex said. "Go set up the simulator and repeat it while I speak with your friend. Do not concern yourself with seeing him home." 

"Sorry, I'll do bettah... better," Remy said leaving the room. 

Warren felt a ball of lead forming in his stomach as the door shut behind Remy but he met Essex's eyes squarely. "I hear you preformed quite the miracle for Remy," he said. 

"Yes," Essex replied. "My little Gambit is quite impressive. I find continual amazement in the number of unexpected developments which prove to be the most useful of discoveries. He isn't at all what I expected from that line of experiments." 

Warren felt his wings lift and spread defensively. It was too much information. Essex wasn't trying to sell him anything; he didn't care what Warren thought of him or his plans for the Morlocks. Warren didn't want to think about why that was. 

"You are quite an interesting and contradictory creature yourself," Essex continued. "Are you aware your wing span isn't sufficient to allow you to fly? Nature gifts you with the ability to fly, then encumbers you with these ridiculous appendages, which are, in truth, nothing more than mental crutches. Determining how to correct this error will hopefully prove an interesting challenge." 

Warren took to the air, using his powerful wings to crash into Essex at top speed. Essex slammed him to the ground. Warren scrambled to his feet and sprinted toward the door, only to find himself in a narrow hallway. Two people waited on either side of the door, blocking his retreat and a transformed Essex stood behind him, pale skinned with a black diamond on his forehead, shark teeth and burning eyes, he was even more menacing than before. 

"Pretty birdie, do we get to play with him?" Archlight asked. 

"I don't want him damaged unnecessarily, yet," Essex said. 

Warren lashed out with a wing, trying to clear a path. Vertigo ducked, her purple haired companion reached out and caught the wing in a vice-like grip and twisted. 

Warren let himself roll with the force she applied, saving himself from a broken wing. It was a futile effort, Harpooner jabbed a spear through Warren's outstretched wing, pinning him to the floor. 

Through the waves of red-hot pain radiating out from his wing, Warren heard Essex chastising Harpooner for the damage to his prize. 

"Sinister, I didn't think that..." 

"You never do," Essex, no Sinister interrupted sharply. "Even Gambit has more sense than you do and he is a child. Take him to the lab." 

Warren choked back a scream as the spear was wrenched from his wing and he was hoisted to his feet between the two men. 

As they drug him away Warren heard Harpooner complain, "I am so damn sick of Gambit. Boss' little pet, can't do nothing wrong. Too good to associate with the likes of us." 

"The kid's useful," Scalphunter replied tossing Warren into one of the sound proof glass tubes that served as Sinister's cells or to be more precise, specimen jars. As the pair walked off he continued. "And he's naive, Sinister wants to keep him that way till he's older. Thinks he might turn squeamish if he's told too much too soon." 

"Yeah, I forgot, you've actually met the protégé," Harpooner said sarcastically. 

"Sinister can trust me to behave myself and the kid needs to learn to use his powers in a combat situation. He isn't that bad, it's not like it's his fault the boss thinks he has potential." 

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	3. Descent: 3 of 6

**Descent**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 3 

Remy stood under the warm spray of water, head leaning against the cool tiles, trying to let the shower wash away his frustration along with the grime from the Morlocks' tunnels. Sarah had run off at the last moment, both Cat and Chloe decided to stay and look for the girl rather than coming with him. Essex hadn't been happy about that, plus he'd failed his bio exam. 

Remy punched the wall of the shower in a sudden burst of anger. Nothing he did was ever right or good enough. He tried. He really tried. Tried to talk right, to make sense of all the lessons Essex gave him, to bring people to Essex for help even when Remy couldn't understand why it was so important to reach mutants who didn't want help half the time. 

And Sarah! Who cared what some little kid thought anyway? It wasn't his fault she ran off, but Essex was blaming him for not paying more attention to her. 

As Remy slammed his fist into the wall a second time the eldritch fire of his power erupted with his temper, leaping easily from his skin to the droplets of water clinging to the tile. Remy jumped back, throwing an arm up to protect his face from the impending explosion. 

After several minutes of deep breathing exercises he stepped back into the shower to examine the damage. He sighed in relief seeing nothing worse than a black streak on the wall. He'd only charged the water, not the wall itself thankfully. 

"T'ink sometime boy," he told himself, grabbing up a robe and heading back toward his room. "Essex don' feel like anger, he ain't yo're pa'ents. He's strict, oui. Demandin', but he don' hit yo'." 

Remy barely noticed the sterile corridors of the base anymore. He'd taught himself not to see them; it made living there easier. His room was the one place on that really felt welcoming to him. He'd all but papered the walls with posters he acquired one way or another. Most of them tourist sheets about New Orleans, not the dangerous back alley he'd found when he tried to make his way home, but the New Orleans of his dreams. The bright colors of the Marti Gras, tree lined streets overhung with vine-covered balconies, old stately manor houses with crumbling bricks. The posters were proof that his memories were more than just a child's fantasy. 

Remy dug a meditating crystal out of his belongings and sat cross-legged on his bed, concentrating on divorcing himself from his emotions. Without control he was death walking, purposeless destruction, fueled by fear or anger, emotions that ruled his life. Essex was right, he was better off without them, but he couldn't find it in him to be so cold. 

Some time later a knock sounded at the door. 

"Quoi?" Remy asked. 

"Something wrong Gambit?" Scalphunter asked. 

"Why yo' t'ink dat Grey Crow?" Remy replied opening the door, giving his friend and teacher a carefree smile. 

"Scorched tiles in the bathroom," Scalphunter said frankly. 

"Mais, yo' know it gets 'way from me once an' awhile," Remy said grimacing. 

"Yeah, when you're upset," Scalphunter replied. 

"Mebbe I was a little frustrated," Remy admitted. "Jus' a bit. Ain't wort' mentionin' really... Would it kill him to give me a break jus' once?" 

"It's not his style, boy. You know that," the big mercenary said. "You've got promise, he won't let you squander it." 

"Mais he could be friendlier," Remy sulked. 

"You want warmth," Scalphunter said. "Like Richard gave you? Emotions like that are nice, sure, but they aren't dependable, you saw that." He tapped Remy on the head, "You're better off thinking with that, not your heart. And better off still if you don't trust anyone who lets their feelings lead them, you can never tell where they'll take a body. You're better off with Essex he only acts from logic. You can trust that. It may be cold, but it's not fickle." 

"I know, but yo' ever t'ink mebbe he sees somet'ing dat ain't dere? What'll his logic tell him when I can't live up to his 'xpectations?" Remy asked. 

"Don't worry Remy, you're doing fine," Scalphunter reassured the boy. "You do what he tells you to, keep working on your lessons like you have been, everything'll work out." 

****** ****** ****** 

"Waking up was hell," Warren decided. In his dreams he wasn't here. Sometimes he was in school or back with his parents. The best were when he was flying free, with nothing holding him to the Earth. 

Then he'd wake up, it always took a few minutes to remember the realities of his current existence. Waking, stretching his wings, feeling the walls of his cell and the agonizing pain of his injuries, claustrophobia out running reason, spending several minutes beating pointlessly at the impenetrable glass of his prison, doing even more damage to his wings, renewing the bruises on his hands, screaming his throat raw. 

Waking up was hell, and life didn't improve much once it was over. As much as he hated his harness, he'd always known he could take it off. He wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd had the room to spread his wings. And if the constant misery of claustrophobia wasn't enough to drive him crazy there was always the boredom. He couldn't do anything; there wasn't room to pace. He couldn't even scratch the days or defiant messages into the walls of his cell. He could sit, stand or lean. He could think or watch what happened in the lab outside his prison. He choose not to either as much as possible. Thinking was painful, hopeless plans for escape, terrifying imaginings of his future, depressing longings for his past. His thoughts weren't much of a sanctuary. 

He was glad he couldn't hear what happened in the lab. He generally refused to look at it, it only provided fuel for his imagination and if the Morlocks ended up on those tables because of his failure to warn them he didn't want to know. 

So far Sinister had been content to simply take samples from Warren for study. Warren knew better than to expect this grace period to last. Boredom would eventually drive him insane, but being on one of those tables would do it a lot quicker. Warren almost hoped Sinister would give him the time to loose his mind before the experiments really started. 

The walls of the lab were lined with cells like Warren's, about fifty total. For the most part Sinister worked his way around the room methodically, experimenting on one of his victims then disposing of the unfortunate before moving on to the next cell in line. There were always new captives to replace those Sinister tired of. Warren bitterly pondered Gambit's effectiveness in procuring them. 

Watching Sinister's progression brought feelings of marching slowly and helplessly to his execution. But sometimes something caught Sinister's interest and he skipped ahead at random, it made certain that the terror of Sinister's arrival never dulled. Warren could never be sure that today wouldn't be his turn. 

Warren had watched one mutant try to beat her skull in against the walls of her cell when she had been next in line. Sinister had secured her to a lab table and left her like that till he was ready to proceed. Not even suicide was an escape from this hell. 

Warren had tried creating a sign language to communicate with his neighbors. The boy on his left spent his time curled in a ball sobbing. The girl on his right was consumed by watching Sinister with a futile, maniacal hatred. Neither wanted to talk. 

So Warren waited and wondered if he should encourage the seeds of madness he sensed in himself or to fight them. He dreamed of the skies and cursed those who'd stolen them from him. The past was lost, the future belonged to the realm of nightmare and the present was hell. 

****** ****** ****** 

Essex sat across the table from Remy in the small dining room near the boy's quarters. "Evolution is a process of trial and error," he lectured. "It takes much time and it has no mercy in dealing with its failures, but the process is necessary." 

"Why?" Remy asked. 

"Because change is life, the world molds us to face new challenges." Essex replied. "If we do not embrace change, there are others who will and they will sweep us away. We are not the only species who mutates." 

"If it's all nature den why do we need to do anyt'ing?" Remy said. "You had me read Darwin, it's not a choice, its just what happens. I didn't choose m' powers, or m' eyes, or even m' height. I take dem and live wid dem as best as 'M able. Dat's all anyone can do." 

"Did you also read Ayn Rand as I assigned?" Essex asked. 

Remy glanced away. "She's long," he commented. "Don', I mean, she isn't in any big hurry to make her points." 

"Yes, that is a flaw of most writers of fiction, they lack efficacy, it is in the nature of allegory and parables. Unfortunately some of those who would call themselves my colleagues suffer the same lack, in them it is the result of pompousness. Remember that when making your reports to me," Essex said. "I do not assign you much fiction for this reason, but there is value in some of it. I expect you to read what I assign, even if you find it long or dull." 

"It isn't boring," Remy argued. "I mean you got sex an' fighting, but I figured dat wasn't why you wanted me to read it. I don' get her meaning, what's so wrong wid carin' 'bout people?" 

"That goes back to your earlier question. It is our nature to evolve, but with his intelligence man has found ways to oppose evolution. He fears the unknown and those stronger than himself, he pities the weak protects them. He works in direct opposition to evolution. He can't stop it, but he can slow it. Dragging out the process only increases the cruelty associated with it. I seek to streamline things. I cannot eliminate the pain of evolution, but it should be a clean, quick suffering. We can encourage those mutations which show promise to succeed. Proper planning can shorten the process by generations. I have been working for centuries at this task, planting the seeds to ensure that mutants will erupt abruptly, in great numbers. If you look around you, you will see it has already begun. Humans will not be able to halt the tide, but my work is not yet finished." 

"Yo're centuries ole? Mon Dieu, dat be hundreds of years," Remy interrupted. "How is dat possible? Merde, yo' look bien for your age." 

Essex sighed, since taking Remy in hand he found it was impossible to drag the boy's attention back to the main subject, until his curiosity had been satisfied about whatever tangent had caught his eye. "I have adapted myself to age more slowly so that my work would not be cut short by the passage of time. My best efforts could not speed evolution enough to fit it in a single lifespan so I have altered my own genetic structure to extend my life enough to overseeing this next step in human evolution. And please remember your English." 

"Sorry," Remy replied absently. "You got rid of your emotions too, right? Did you do it at the same time?" 

"No, the elimination of my emotions did not require altering my genome, simply destroying a segment of my brain. I did that years before slowing the aging process," Essex replied. "I would do the same for you, but the center of your mutant abilities is located closely to the emotional center of your brain, I cannot destroy one without risking the other." 

"Dat's okay," Remy said nervously. " 'M workin' on controlling m' emotions, I t'ink dat be good enough." 

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	4. Descent: 4 of 6

**Descent**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 4 

The boy who sobbed apparently didn't interest Sinister after the initial testing. One day his henchmen simply came in and hauled the boy away, leaving Warren the next in line for the mad scientist's attention. 

The first few sessions wouldn't have been any worse than a particularly grueling doctor's exam. No worse than the examinations Warren had endured when his father's physicians had been trying to determine the best way to remove his wings a lifetime ago, except for one little thing. The physicians had talked to him. They'd warned him before doing something that would hurt. They'd explained their actions to him and tried to be reassuring. Sinister reported his findings and made notes in much the same manner as a corner might have done. If he were aware that the body he was working on contained a feeling, self-aware individual, he gave no sign that he cared. 

As the days progressed Sinister's tests became more invasive, egocentric and painful. One day Warren gave into his impulses and screamed until he was gagged. After that he only screamed when he couldn't help it. 

One day, instead of securing him to one of the tables, Sinister had Harpooner and Archlight drag him up to the roof where they held him immobile while Sinister attached electrodes to his head and body, the wires were connected to a small box Sinister secured to Warren's back, between his wings. A manacle with a long chain attached was put on his ankle. When everything was in place the two henchmen hauled him toward the edge of the roof. 

To his own surprise Warren realized that he didn't want to die. "Stop! Please!" he begged. "I can't fly like this! Look at my wings, I can't fly!" 

"Your wings were never sufficient to support your mass." Sinister said, appearing mildly surprised his captive had spoken and with that Warren was summarily tossed off the roof. 

His broken, battered wings wrapped around his body like a shroud and he plummeted toward the Earth. 

The chain around his ankle brought him to an abrupt halt, sending shocks of pain through his body. But instead of smashing into the side of the building and dashing his brains out Warren found himself swinging a few feet off the ground in the open mouth of an airplane hanger. After several minutes Archlight showed up and hauled him back to his cell in the lab. 

The next time he was strapped to the table Sinister said. "I believe the subject's damaged wings interfere with his in-born ability to fly. While it would be possible to heal the wings, the rehabilitation process would be lengthy and their use taints my data." 

Warren wasn't sure how he knew, but he knew, as surely as he knew his name, that the scientist intended to cut off his wings and something in his mind snapped. The madness that had hovered in the corners of his mind for so long descended and consumed him. 

Warren fought his shackles with a strength lent to him by desperation, and the restraints gave way. Warren fell to the floor, then scrambled to his feet and ran, unmindful of the injuries he'd sustained, only knowing that he had to get out. 

The turn of events caught Sinister unaware and Warren escaped into the compound before he could react. 

Warren had no though in his head except escape, no sense of which direction he should go in except away, no plan except to keep moving. He never even noticed the other person until he plowed into him. Weakened by his captivity the collision threw Warren to the ground. 

"Mon Dieu," a concerned voice exclaimed, then strong hands were helping Warren to his feet. "What happened to you? Wings? De Morlock's Wings? Why are you here? What happened to you?" 

Warren froze, rooted to the spot by the demon eyes that had haunted his nightmares. Gambit had changed; the underweight, awkward twelve-year-old had grown and added a healthy layer of muscle over his bones, an easy grace to his movement and at least two years to his age. 

Seeing the true length of his captivity in the other boy's face, Warren screamed his outrage and dove at Gambit, intending murder. The pair hit the floor in a tangle, Warren pinned Gambit beneath him, his hands locked around Gambit's throat. The younger boy's eyes were filled with shock and an old fear. Gambit's hands pressed against Warren's chest and an explosion tore them apart. 

Both were sporting burns when they scrambled to their feet. Gambit was holding a handful of glowing cards, "I don't want to hurt you Wings," he warned. 

"Your master doesn't like damaged merchandise?" Warren asked with a bitter laugh. "Too late for that." 

A card exploding at his feet tripped him and foiled Warren's second attack. As he struggled up for a third try a feeling of dizziness swept over him, robbing him of the focused terror and rage that had kept him on his feet that long. He felt hands clamping onto his arms, restraining him. He tried to reclaim the madness that had aided him before, but all he found was the ashes of despair and hopelessness along with the sick spinning sense of vertigo. 

"Grey Crow, why's he like this?" Gambit asked and Warren hated the boy even more for having the nerve to sound concerned and compassionate. 

Warren fought as he was drug back toward the lab, his hate filled eyes fixed on Gambit. 

"He had an accident," Scalphunter explained. "Didn't realize you knew him. The boss'll fix him up good as new, don't worry yourself about it. Might take awhile longer to get his head sorted out, but you know that." 

Behind Scalphunter, Vertigo was fighting to keep from rolling her eyes and smirking at the pretty story her field commander was spinning for the boy. 

Remy gave her a suspicious look but nodded. "Oui, I know, a'most flashed back to Richard when he tried to strangle me. You'll let me know when he's feeling well 'nough for visitors?" 

"Sure kid," Scalphunter replied. "But if he fixates on you as a focal point for his anger it might not ever happen." 

"Why would he?" Remy asked. 

"I don't have a clue," Scalphunter lied. "But that's what it looked like he was doing a few minutes ago, and I don't want to see you get hurt." 

"Merci," Remy said a small edge of suspicious creeping into his voice. "Mais, got t'ings to do. See you around." 

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	5. Descent: 5 of 6

**Descent**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 5 

The little office near Remy's quarters was an eerie place at 2:00 in the morning, lit only by the light coming off the computer screen. The shadow cast by the gooseneck lamp had the look of a dragon leaning over his shoulder. The whisper of air through the vents sounded like the sighs of a mournful ghost, while the creak of the chair's casters became the sound of a cell door being shut. All in all haunted houses had nothing on this place. 

"Or mebbe it was de readin' material," Remy thought to himself. Getting into Essex's records had been surprisingly easy, the lab journals were clear, concise and fully illustrated. 

Remy shuttered, quickly closing the link he'd just opened, wishing he could erase the image from his mind as easily as he'd erased it from the computer screen. The worst thing about it was that she was still recognizable despite everything that had been done to her. He'd known her, he'd brought her here, he was responsible for what had been done to her, there was no way to deign that, not with her once lovely, now tortured eyes staring into his from the depths of the computer screen. 

And the records went on and on, stretching back across decades. Coldly analytical descriptions of atrocities committed in the name of science, recorded without a hint of remorse or regret for the lives destroyed. And for two years Remy had unknowingly facilitated this horror. 

"Mais, I don' understand, he saved me," the boy whispered to himself. "Dis ain't what he taught me. Why would he do dis?" 

****** ****** ****** 

Warren had struggled until Archlight cracked him upside the head hard enough to knock him out. 

He woke-up back in his cell instantly knowing what had happened. For months, possibly over a year, his wings had been crippled by the damage they'd sustained, a useless, unresponsive weight dragging at his shoulders. He would have given anything to have that weight back. It held the promise that some day he might heal and fly again. Now there was nothing at all. 

Warren didn't bother to move from where he'd been dropped. Even the minimal effort required to shift his body to a more comfortable position seemed like too much work, the reward not worth the bother. 

When they came for him Warren hung limp and unmoving between Sinister's lackeys. He barely blinked as the ground rushed up at him. He cursed the chain that arrested his fall before he could reach the oblivion it promised. 

Warren's lethargy remained as they hauled back to his cell and several days later put him back on the table where Sinister welded metal wings to his shoulder in place the organic ones he'd taken from him. 

****** ****** ****** 

"So dis is where it happens," Remy said stepping into the lab. He wasn't supposed to be in this section of the base, but Sinister didn't seem surprised to see him. 

"Yes, this is my lab, I knew you'd come here after accessing the files," the scientist said. "Do you have any questions?" 

"Yo' lied to me," Remy cried. "Yo' said yo' were tryin' to minimize de cruelty and de sufferin'. Yo' create it." 

"I told you that evolution does not work on a human scale, neither do I," Essex replied, unperturbed. "If you look at my research on an individual basis it does appear cruel and inhumane, but these are natures failures, destined to be discarded as the species finds more viable paths to follow. They would have served no purpose in the greater scheme, but by studying them, I can glean knowledge and in some cases push them in a more advantageous direction. I collect their genetic material and recombine it with proper matches, allowing them to find the immortality their lines would most like fail to obtain if left to their own devices. My work will ensure that humanity is the species to evolve to the next plain of existence rather than becoming a chapter in the planet's history like the dinosaurs." 

"Yo' said dat yo' be makin' de transition to de new species easier," Remy protested, his temper beginning to manifest itself through his powers as a glowing nimbus surrounding him. 

"And I have, the number of generations until Homo Sapien Superior inherits this world may very well be halved because of my efforts," Sinister said calmly. "I understand that this is a lot for you to absorb, your emotions are obviously running very high at this moment, interfering with your reason. It would be advisable for you to spend some time meditating on what you have learned and examining it with logic rather than allowing your behavior to be ruled by a 'gut reaction'." 

"Yo' tell me I should ignore dere pain, cause it don' mattah in de long run, but how can' yo'?" Remy said making a final plea. "Can't yo' feel dem? Dis whole room, it be chokin' wid deir misery." 

"But I don't feel it," Sinister replied. "Not the way you do. You are an empath. The talent is quite useful, even when used subconsciously without training. I believe it's a simple defensive reaction, whenever you interact with people you naturally persuade them to like you, to agree with you. You sense what they feel and know how to reach them, further you can change how they feel. A telepath can plant thoughts in a person's mind, but they can be dissuaded, easily in truth, if their feelings run contrary, but when a strong enough empath changes a person's feeling they will come up with their own reasons. Furthermore they defend and justify those reasons even to the death. Very few are capable of truly shutting out their emotions and acting on logic, mores the pity for the species." 

"Yo're saying dese people only gave demselves to yo' 'cause I made dem?" Remy asked, horrified. 

"Of course, you play on their fears and hopes. I've never been able to gauge your true strength, but I believe you should be able to eliminate all the suffering in this room and make my subjects into willing martyrs to the cause of science," Sinister said. 

"Non! Dis is wrong," Remy protested. 

"Your abilities do come with drawbacks," Sinister sighed. "It is bad enough to be swayed by one's own emotion, but you must also guard against being swayed by the emotions of others. Their feelings are nothing more than tools at your disposal, and should be treated as such." 

****** ****** ****** 

Back in his cell, recovering from the surgery, a black hatred began rising in Warren. The dead mass of the metal wings Sinister had welded to his shoulders were a mockery of those that had been taken from him. Ridged and unwieldy, the things would never fly. They were a lie and a cruel joke, a reminder of what had been stolen from him. 

Warren forced himself to remain complacent as they pulled him up to the roof once more, but when he found himself under the gray, stormy sky he broke away, plunging over the side of the building and hopefully to his death. 

Then the impossible happened. An updraft caught the metal wings and bore Warren aloft. The sight of the ground falling away beneath him and the feel of the winds surrounding him awoke a fierce joy in his heart. Seconds later it ended as gravity reasserted its claim. 

Warren's whole being cried out at this new torment and that thing inside him that Sinister had been trying to find awoke and twisted. The metal wings went liquid for a moment, reformed by the blackest hate and wild desperation. The metal flowed into his muscles and nerves making itself a part of him, turning his skin the bluish cast of steel, and as the ground rushed back toward him the newly forged wings stretched, caught the air and flapped propelling him back into the sky. 

For a moment Warren hovered, feeling the changes in his being settling into his soul, then he dove back toward the roof and those who had tormented him for so long. He slashed at them with wings as sharp and cold as hate. 

Sinister's body flowed and reformed behind Warren's cuts, leaving him untouched but Archlight and Scalphunter bled and died quite satisfactorily. 

Warren took another slashed at Sinister and the villainous creature caught him by the arm and hurtled him into the access door. 

As Warren's wings extended the structure was torn apart. He hovered among the debris, a blue skinned avatar of death and destruction. He wanted nothing more than to tear Sinister limb from limb, but the weapons his fury had forged for him weren't capable of the task. 

With a shriek of rage Warren turned and flew into the base, looking for more effective weaponry or easier targets for his vengeance. 

****** ****** ****** 

Remy stole a quick glance into the lab, upon finding it empty of Sinister or his henchman, he slipped inside. "Essex says I can take 'way deir sufferin', an' I will, for real," Remy said determinedly. 

He drew a card from the pocket of his coat and infused it the lurid glow of his power; he threw the card at the base of one of the class cells. The card exploded on impact, but to Remy's shock left the glass unscathed. 

His efforts didn't go unnoticed by the prisoners. A number of them rose to their feet, beating on the glass, staring at him with dreadful hope in their eyes, he could see their mouth moving in soundless pleas. 

" 'M tryin'," Remy said grabbing up a book from Sinister's desk and charging it. The resultant explosion filled that corner of the room with flames. When the air clear the cell that had taken the brunt of the blast was still intact, but a near by stack of papers was smoldering. Remy put out the fire, his expression drawn into a frown as his plans began to fall apart. 

Remy placed his hands on the glass. As he poured his power into wall of the cell, Remy realized it was something more than glass or plastic. The substance absorbed and dispersed his power, refusing to take a charge. Angry and determined Remy pushed more and more power into the cell, until he overloaded it. 

The blast threw Remy across the room slamming him violently into a wall. For a moment the boy blacked out. The unfortunate occupant of the cell was incinerated by Remy's efforts on his behalf. By the time Remy began stirring, sparks from the explosion had grown into a full-fledged blaze, merrily eating it's way toward Sinister's chemical stores. 

Remy turned to Sinister's computer terminals and began pounding on the keys practically at random, trying desperately to unlock the cells, glancing back at the advancing flames every few minutes. 

Remy flinched at the first explosion not of his making; the stink of burning chemicals filled the lab. Remy bit his lip and kept typing. More explosions followed the first. Remy coughed harshly as the foul smoke invaded his lungs, his skin shown with sweat from the heat of the fire. 

"Dammit open!" Remy yelled slamming a fist into the keyboard; an errant burst of his power shattered the computer terminal. He stared at the destruction in dismay. The heat of the fire gradually drove him back from the cells. "Je desole," Remy whispered staring helplessly at Sinister's victims. "I wanted to save yo'." 

Remy managed to take two steps back toward the cells before he was over come with a fit of coughing that drove him to his knees. "I did m' best, mais I can't get yo' free. Je tres desole." 

The boy turned and fled the inferno by a side door. After several turns Remy entered a room packed with coils of machinery. Remy hurried to the control panel, forcing himself to remember what he'd seen Essex do to activate it, then punched the proper sequence of keys. A moment later the equipment whirred into action and Remy felt the cold blast of air from the portal seeping in from the neighboring room. 

He couldn't be sure where the portal would end, but anywhere was better than here, taking a deep breath he dove into the swirling tear in reality. 

****** ****** ****** 

Warren's new wings were less cumbersome in the tight spaces than his original ones had been, his flight faster and more precise. That his wings, which had once been beautiful, giving him the appearance of a symbol of light and hope, should become cruelly efficient instruments of death and carnage seemed oddly fitting to Warren. That those who'd taken his life, his very soul, should provide him with the means to destroy them seemed a poetic irony. 

In his heart Warren knew there would be no mercy for any of those associated with Sinister. 

He came on Harpooner in an eye blink, the dark, stocky villain managed to hurl one of his energized spears. Warren pulled his wings in tight, spiraling out of the spear's path, and then extending them to all but cut Harpooner in half. The man died before he hit the floor. Vertigo fell even faster. 

As Warren approached the lab were he had been held prisoner an explosion drove him back. A second explosion, even larger, followed the first. Warren tumbled backward, head over heels, propelled by the blast. 

A third and fourth explosion came in quick succession, almost over lapping, and the smell of chemicals filled the air. 

Warren took to the air, flying as quickly as he could through the twisting halls, harried on by the increasingly violent explosions at his back. 

Sinister appeared at the top of a stairwell, striding toward the source of the chaos a determined frown on his face. 

All though of escape fled Warren's mind at the sight of his torturer. Warren flew at Sinister at full speed, intending to decapitate the man. 

Sinister fired a bolt of power from his hands, deflecting Warren's flight. Warren spun out of control, plowing into Sinister. 

In close combat Warren should have been murderous, his wings a virtual barrage of swords, each feather sharper than the finest katana blade and backed by his powerful flight muscles. But his opponent's body split and reformed like liquid and Sinister's superior strength quickly began to turn the battle in his favor. 

The vampiric looking man threw Warren against the wall and sent a devastating blast of energy after him. Reflexively Warren's wings wrapped around him, shielding him from the bolt, it ricocheted, striking Sinister and sending him to his knees. 

Flames from the most recent explosion shot up the stairwell as if it were the mouth of a cannon. 

Warren smiled vindictively, then tackled the stunned villain sending him tumbling down the stairwell as another explosion raced up to engulf him. 

Warren rode the shockwave up, out of the building. Several dozen feet in the air he hovered watching as explosions consumed the compound. 

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	6. Descent: 6 of 6

**Descent**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 6 

The Present... 

"It had all been over so fast," he thought. "Two years suffering couldn't be avenged in a few short minutes of devastation." 

For days afterwards he'd searched the rubble for survivors, hardly caring if he found any of his fellow prisoner but eagerly searching for someone responsible, someone he could inflict suffering on. He'd searched in vain. He managed to unearth the lab and the bodies of Sinister's captives, their cells had survived the destruction intact but the superheated air had roasted them where they stood. In all his searching he didn't find a single living soul, nor did he find the bodies of Sinister or Gambit. 

Eventually he'd moved on, the lab's location had been remote and the locals hesitant to pay attention to anything that happened there, but eventually the authorities came and he didn't want to face their questions or the fear and disgust that he knew would fill their eyes at the sight of him. 

He'd returned to Philadelphia and the tunnels where the Morlocks had lived. A decomposing coloring book had been the only sign they'd ever been there. He never learned if they'd been taken by Sinister or if they'd gotten suspicious and fled after his disappearance. 

After that he'd drifted, alone, purposeless, disconnected from the world. He'd stumbled across a few creatures of evil, but destroying them brought only short-lived triumph. 

He couldn't remember the last time he'd had anything even resembling a good day, until today. Until he'd seen the tall, russet haired boy stowing a duffle bag in a locker at the airport before heading out into the city of New York. 

At first it had been hard to believe what his instincts were telling him. Dressed in slightly tattered cargo pants, sunglasses and a tee shirt with a coat tucked into his backpack strap, the boy wasn't the most respectable looking high schooler he'd ever seen, but there was nothing about him that screamed demonic minion of evil incarnate either. 

Still he'd become accustom to acting on his instincts so he followed the boy on silent wings. Eventually the boy had briefly pushed up his sunglasses. The flame on ebony eyes were incontestable proof that Gambit had somehow survived the lab's destruction nearly two years ago. 

A cruel smile crossed the watcher's face, this time he wouldn't make the mistake of ending things quickly. This time he'd be repaid in full, scream for scream. Each wound to his body or soul returned in kind, until he was finally free of the hell Gambit had led him into so long ago. 

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	7. One Wild Night: 1 of 2

**One Wild Night**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 1 

Gambit hummed softly under his breath as he carefully peeled back the covering on a heavy wire, which was humming it's own song with the power it carried to expose the bright glitter of copper. He stretched a finger toward the wire, being careful not to actually touch it, a grin plastered on his face. 

In a few seconds the wire was singing with another form of power. Gambit's awareness followed his power through the circuitry until the museum's whole power grid was dancing to his tune. Then he added just a touch more power and slagged the entire thing, including the back-up generator. 

The security system thus dealt with, Gambit shot a hydraulic line across to the museum and used it as a tightrope to make his way to the opposite roof. Once there he took a glasscutter and suction cup out of his backpack and removed a panel from the skylight to let himself in. 

****** ****** ****** 

"Did we have a holiday and no one told me?" Spiderman said swinging toward home, planning on making his curfew for once. "No muggers to be seen, not even a super-powered lunatic running amuck. I guess no one felt like being Magneto's follow-up act. Maybe they've got more common sense than I give 'em credit for, I wouldn't want to give Captain America's team an excuse right now." 

Then he noticed a line, besides the normal power lines, running to the roof of the museum. "Someone always has to buck the trend," he said to himself swinging closer. 

Lowering himself head first through the skylight, Spiderman watched a man in a black bodysuit with a half-mask re-hang picture upside down while singing softly to himself. "I'd rather be swinging on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar..." 

"I was planning on letting this one slip," Spiderman said. "But that singing is a crime against humanity." 

The thief glanced over his shoulder appraising the costumed crime fighter through red tinted glasses. "Ain't de blood rushin' to your head like dat?" He asked, casually straightening the picture frame so it hung levelly. 

"Not really," Spiderman replied, wrapping the thief in a cocoon of webbing and attaching the line to the ceiling. "How about yours?" 

The glasses clattered to the floor, revealing inhuman red on black eyes. "Super-soldier serum, freak accident or mutant?" Spidey asked curiously. He noticed that the thief or possibility prankster had been having a busy night. Every picture in the room was upside down or reversed and several of the statues and armor suits had been rearranged in a highly inappropriate tableau. 

A pink glow brought Spidey's attention back to his captive in time to see his webbing dissolve into ash. The thief twisted in mid-air as he fell, landing in a crouch. He grinned, tucked a crystal-studded statuette in his backpack and dashed out of the room. 

Spidey took off after him after a moment's surprised pause. By that time the thief had disappeared into one of the other rooms. The sound of shattering glass drew Spidey to the end of the hall. He stood at the broken window peering out at the empty street wondering if the broken glass were a ruse or not. 

Catching a glimpse of movement from the connecting street, Spidey shot a web-line to the corner of next building. He swung around the corner and groaned in disappointment when he saw a teen with shoulder length russet hair in a long, brown trenchcoat. 

As he swung past, something made Spike glance back and he caught a gleam of red from beneath the teen's overly long bangs. 

"Why that sneaky..." Spidey exclaimed reversing his swing. 

****** ****** ****** 

Gambit bit back an exclamation of surprise as he was snatched off the street. He kicked out at the wall as they swung up into the air sending them spinning out of control. Then he grabbed his capture's hand, mimicking the motion he'd seen the other teen use to trigger his web shooter. Gambit grabbed the new line and swung free as the wallcrawler leapt to a perch on top of a street lamp. 

The webline Gambit had stolen struck the traffic signal cable and his trajectory arced upward sharply. At the apex of his swing Gambit released the line and somersaulted to land on a nearby roof. 

The wallcrawler shot a line of webbing hoping to snare Gambit again, he responded by charging the dust particles in the air surrounding him. When the webline stuck his shied a small explosion deflected it away from him. "What'd yo' know, dat worked," Gambit remarked to himself then with a quick wave to the wallcrawler he ran and jumped to the neighboring building. 

****** ****** ****** 

Spidey fought back a grin as the cocky thief waved before fleeing. " 'Can't catch me!' That's what you think," he said accepting the challenge with enthusiasm. 

Traveling by web line he quickly cut off the other teen, herding him toward a dead-end area for anyone attempting rooftop travel without the benefit of wings or webbing, even if they were using a bo-staff like a pole-vaulter. 

To Spidey's surprise the sight of him swing toward the thief didn't give the other teen a moments pause. The thief launched himself into the air, caught Spidey's own web-line several feet about the wallcrawler, swung around like a gymnast and jumped to a new building. 

This time Spidey followed the thief's change of direction without a moment's pause landing a few feet from the thief and lashing out at him with a quick punch. 

****** ****** ****** 

Gambit sprung back avoiding a blow as he telescoped out his bo. 

The web-slinger made use of the increased distance to try another snare of webbing. Gambit barely had time to deflect the sticky substance with his bo, only to have the staff jerked out of his hands by a powerful pull. 

For a moment Gambit's body language took on a hint of caution, then a wide, living-in-moment smile crossed his face and he pulled out a deck of cards, singing to himself. 

The web-swinger winced as he dodged explosions. "What is with the auditory torture?" he asked. "Wasn't that banned as being inhumane?" 

"Been catchin' up on some educational films," Gambit replied. " 'trapment, gotta say Catherine Zeta-Jones..." He whistled appreciatively. "Wouldn' mind teamin' up wid a t'ief dat looked like dat. An' de Hudson Hawk and de Saint, like deir style, me. Dey both get de femme. Course, neither one gets de loot, ma Bella, don' t'ink she'd be 'mpressed by dat." 

****** ****** ****** 

Spidey flipped over an explosion and landed a solid punch that sent the thief reeling back. "Man, I gotta introduce you to a better class of movies; ones where they realize that the thief is the bad guy. I mean you're a walking, talking advertisement for those people who want to ban all the cool shows." 

Careful to pull his punches so as to avoid actually hurting the thief, Spidey landed several more blows then shot out another line of webbing, planning on hanging the resourceful thief somewhere high enough that using his abilities to destroy the webbing wouldn't be a viable idea. 

Less stunned than Spidey had imagined, the thief managed to roll clear, the webbing attached itself to the roof beside him and he reached out and used it like a fuse to send one of his charges back into the webshooter. 

Spidey winced at the muffled crump of his webbing blowing up, mangling the mechanism. He already knew the shooter was so much scrape metal, but he was grateful not to have been injured, some of the thief's larger charges could have taken his arm along with the mechanism. 

As the pair set themselves for hand-to-hand combat a frightened scream filled the air. The thief tossed Spidey his backpack, containing the statuette. "I t'ink dat be m' day job callin'," he said taking off in the direction of the scream. 

Spidey dropped the pack and did the same. The loss of a webshooter hindered his chosen mode of travel, but he still quickly over took the thief. 

Less than a minute later he was on the scene. The mugger was an ugly specimen, dirty blond hair, blunt, brutal features with a vivid scar latterly bisecting his face. 

"Couldn't you wait your turn?" Spidey demanded. "I was actually having fun with the last guy." 

A moment before he struck the man, Spidey's senses screamed that this one was more than the typical mugger. He threw himself to the side, but didn't quite manage to get clear of the cloud of gas that shot from the tubes attached to the underside of his opponent's wrists. 

The gas acted quickly and with devastating effect. Spidey felt the strength fleeing his limbs like water from a cracked pitcher. 

"I knew you'd walk into my trap sooner or later," the mugger said. "Didn't expect it to happen on my first victim, but ya don't see me complaining." 

"What is your problem?" Spidey demanded. "I mean who are you anyway? I've never even met you and you've already got a grudge?" 

"Right now I'm nobody," the mugger said with a grin. "But that'll all change when I kill you. You've earned a nice rep for yerself and I'm gonna take it." 

"With a sucker punch?" Spidey taunted. "Oh yeah, that's going to impress people." 

"Mais when yo're as pat'etic as dis homme, I suppose yo' take what yo' can get," the Cajun thief announced, standing in the mouth of the alley. He gave the mugger a disparaging look. "Not dat he'll be getting' anyt'ing tonight." 

"Why don't ya mind yer own business?" the scared man growled. "Ya live longer that way, kid." 

While they traded glares the woman who'd been attacked escaped unnoticed. 

"Mindin' m' own business gets so dull dough," the thief sighed. "I'd rather mind yours." 

"Have it yer way," the mugger sneered, stalking the thief. 

A card thrown at his feet sent Spidey's ambusher flying into the wall with a loud crack, the demon-eyed mutant followed up with a kick to the mugger's jaw that robbed him of consciousness. 

"Yo' dyin' or anyt'ing?" the Cajun asked Spidey. 

"I don't think so," he replied. "Not feeling to great, but I don't think I'm getting any worse." 

" 'Kay, in dat case, I'll be takin' a moment to deal wid dis trash." The Cajun relieved the would-be assassin of the equipment containing the gas. After hauling it to the end of the alley he rested his hands on the canister and closed his eyes in concentration. Almost immediately the canister took on the pink glow of his mutant powers, after a few moment it slowly shifted to a bright, white light. 

The thief leapt backwards and the canister exploded with an impressive bang. "I hate poisons, neh. Gotta make sure everyt'ing be well an' truly charged so I don' jus' release it," he commented. 

"Um thanks," Spidey said, not quite sure of the etiquette involved when someone you'd been fighting barely five minutes ago decided to save your life. 

"T'ink rien of it mon ami. Yo're fun to scrap wid. I'm Gambit by de way." 

"Spiderman, pleased to meet you," Spidey replied, slightly bemused. He tried to stand up, wobbled for a few moments then dropped back to the pavement. 

"T'ink I should be takin' yo' to a hospital," Gambit commented. 

"No!" Spidey exclaimed. 

"Why not?" Gambit asked. 

"They wouldn't go for the secret identity thing." 

"Den yo' dump dat get-up, no more problems, oui?" 

"Sec-ret I-dent-it-y," Spiderman repeated slowly. "I'm not telling you who I am." 

"Yo're sorta mistrustin', what wid me savin' your life an' all," Gambit commented. 

"You're a thief!" Spidey reminded him. 

"Mais, oui," Gambit replied with a shrug. " 'M still workin' on balancin' dat wid de hero t'ing." 

"Gee, I wonder why that's a toughie," Spidey said. 

"De t'ings I put up wid," Gambit said shaking his head with mock sadness. "Yo' want to wrap dis guy up for de police?" 

"Right," Spidey said trying to make his legs support him again. Gambit slipped under his arm providing support while Spidey wrapped his attacker in a cocoon of webbing. 

"A'right, now dat dat's taken care of, got any place I can take yo'?" 

Spidey wavered for a moment. "Sorry, I really don't want to tell you where any of my friends live, it's nothing personal. 

"Some people jus' got to make t'ings difficult." Gambit replied. "Come on, I got a bolt hole I don' mind yo' seein'." 

Gambit helped Spidey to the first car parked along the street, then propped the other teen up against it and set to work picking the lock. 

"Hey, you can't just steal that!" Spidey objected. 

"Mais, 'M not makin' a spectacle draggin' yo' all over de city, an' so 'less yo' want to stay here an' talk wid de police or mebbe de next homme who 'sides to off yo' while yo're helpless, we gonna be borrowin' dis car," Gambit said with a touch of impatience. "I'll lock it up after we 'bandon it, it'll make it's way home 'ventually." 

Reluctantly Spidey nodded his acceptance. He tried not to be too impressed by the speed and ease with which Gambit picked the lock on the door and hotwired the car. 

Gambit helped Spidey into the car. "Lay down or somet'ing," he ordered. "Don' want no one seen yo' in a car an' wonderin' why." 

The idea sounded like a good one to Spidey, in fact the back seat of the car looked down right inviting. 

"Don' yo' fall 'sleep," Gambit said frowning. "Wanta know if yo're dyin' on me. Yo' get worse an' I am draggin' yo' to de doctors, secret 'dentity or non." 

"Got ya," Spidey replied. "So you steal stuff often?" 

"Yo' might say it's a way of life," Gambit replied, unashamed. "Jus' recently turned pro." 

"So how much was that thing from the museum worth?" Spidey asked, vaguely embarrassed by his curiosity. 

"Mais, don' know," Gambit admitted with a shrug. "De museum, she was jus' gonna be for practice. A little bit of fun 'fore school starts, yo' know." 

"Your school hasn't started yet? That's just not fair," Spidey complained. 

"Don' get too excited, I been home studyin' all summer," Gambit replied. 

"So what made you change your mind?" Spidey asked. 

"Quoi?" 

"Why'd you take it?" 

"De statue? It was nice, yo' see de way de light caught de crystals?" 

"You stole it because it was shiny?" Spidey asked in a tone of disbelief. "You're a kender, you know that?" 

"Am not!" Gambit exclaimed. 

"You are too," Spidey insisted. 

"I... what be a kender?" Gambit asked. 

"Sort of like a hobbit, only they steal everything not nailed down, especially if it's colorful or sparkly," Spidey explained. 

" 'M not short," Gambit announced, sounding wounded. 

"Okay, you're a tall kender," Spidey replied. 

"Merci," Gambit said, his voice thick with sarcasm and touched with a hint of amusement. "We're here. Mais as close as yo' get by car." 

Gambit helped Spidey out of the car and down the stairs into the subway. 

"Where are we going?" Spidey asked uncertainly. 

"An ole place of mine," Remy explained with a sigh. "It's been 'while since I lived here, hope no one else took it over." 

Spidey gave the other boy a slightly incredulous look that was lost behind his mask, but did his best to not hinder their progress. 

"Home, sweet home," Remy commented under his breath at the sight of the abandoned subway car. 

"You lived here?" Spidey asked shocked. 

"What of it?" Gambit replied defensively, dropping Spidey on to one of the benches then digging around under one of the seats. "M' firewood's gone," he commented absently. "Guess we don' need it, dis been' summer an' all but de camp fire makes it a bit nicer." 

"It's fine," Spidey said quickly. "It's really nice of you to help me out like this." 

"I don' live here anymore," Gambit said, ignoring Spidey's overture. "Got amies an' a family even, but I don' got any reason to trus' yo' now do I, so I ain't takin' yo' to dem." 

"It's a great place," Spidey insisted. 

"No, it ain't," Remy said quietly. " 'M gonna go get some food or somet'ing. Make some calls, get yo' some real help." 

Peter watched the other boy disappear into the darkness then shook his head in disgust. "Real smooth, Parker," he said to himself. "Could you have possibly handled that any worse?" 

With a sigh he laid back on the bench, hoping he could sleep off the effects of the gas before his Aunt May got too worried about him. 

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	8. One Wild Night: 2 of 2

**One Wild Night**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 2 

Remy tried calling the mansion a second time, worrying a little and wondering why no one, not even the answering machine, was picking up. After ten rings he hung up and dialed New Orleans. 

"Tante Mattie, it's Remy... Oui, I had a good trip. Now dough mon ami got hisself into some toxin. De idiot won' let me take him to a doctor. So I was wonderin' is dere anyt'ing I ought to do? Or how do I know when to say de hell wid it and drag him off to de hospital no mattah what he say?" 

Remy listened carefully nodding as he took her instructions, after several minutes he thanked her and went to collect the things he'd been told could help. 

As Remy left the grocery store a nightmare figure descended from the sky. Pale, ghostly skin with a bluish cast, feverish blue eyes, burning with fury, shining metallic wings as cold and deadly looking as blades, the being who stood before Remy looked every inch an Angel of retribution. 

"Destroyer, betrayer," the angel intoned. "You will suffer for the lives you ruined." 

Staring into that anger-ravened visage Remy's mouth dropped open in disbelieving recognition. "I don' know what yo're talkin' 'bout M'siuer," he said. 

"Lying demon," the angel's voice cracked like ice breaking beneath an unsuspecting skater. "How many did your devil's tongue charm into giving themselves over to that monster?" 

"You've mistaken me for someone else," Remy said coldly, stepping around the angel to continue on his way. 

The angel moved in close behind him, wrapping his deadly wings around them. Remy repressed a shutter at the feel of death against his skin. "Do their faces haunt your dreams?" he whispered in Remy's ear. "Trust me, they will." 

Then in the blink of an eye, with a rustle of feathers that sounded more like the rasp of a blade being sharpened the angel sprang into the sky, leaving Remy to stare after him. 

"Mon Dieu," Remy cursed. "What de fuck did he do to yo' Wings?" 

****** ****** ****** 

Peter woke up from his nap feeling much better, whatever he'd been hit with seemed to have worked it's way out of his system. 

He waited impatiently for Gambit to return, wanting to thank the other boy for his trouble but worried about the ever-latening hour and the possibility of Aunt May worrying about him or grounding him again when he did get home. 

Time passed slowly in the dilapidated subway car with nothing to do but think about how late it was getting and wonder if Gambit were even planning on coming back at all. 

After a few minutes of pacing had convinced Peter that his legs weren't in danger of giving out on him again, he dug a notebook out of his backpack and scribbled a quick message to Gambit then started for home. 

Once he'd made it back to the surface Peter pulled on his day clothes and caught a bus, "Wouldn't it be fun to figure out I'm not all better ten stories up?" he muttered to himself. "I can see the headlines now: Spiderman's dangerous antiques result in the death of teenaged imitator. Jamison would love it." 

****** ****** ****** 

After a long, convoluted trek that was guaranteed to throw off the best tail, Remy descended into the tunnels with his purchases. 

During his trek he'd tried calling the mansion several more times. He'd also borrowed the comm. gear at the hospital he'd raided for medical supplies and tried raising the Blackbird or any of the X-Men's badges that way, but they were either out of range or not able to answer and Remy was starting to get seriously concerned about his friends. 

He hiked back through the tunnels to find the subway car empty and a folded note taped to the window. The packages Remy was carrying hit the ground with a thud as he felt an ugly sense of deja vu twist at his gut. 

"Should nevah of brought him here," Remy muttered to himself. "It ain't safe, yo' know it ain't safe. Mais dere was no one after him, leas' no one dat wasn' tied up at de moment. Dere was someone after yo' dough... Oh merde... Dis is m' fault, gotta find him." 

Without bothering to read the note, Remy took off for the surface at a dead run. Exiting the subway he quickly glanced around, picked the tallest building and set to work on it's lock, not caring if he set off the alarms or not. 

As soon as he was inside Remy started climbing toward the roof amid blaring alarms. 

" 'M here Wings!" he yelled emerging onto the roof. "Come get me!" He pulled a card from his coat, charged it and tossed it in the air like a signal flare. Then he hit the fire escape. A few floors down he launched himself across to the neighboring building, working his way toward the city's highest skyscrapers. 

Ten minutes and several challenges later Remy heard a whisper of metal on metal and felt a wave of hatred. "So you do know me after all," a cold voice said. 

Remy turned to see the vengeful angel hovering above him. "Yo' got no right!" Remy yelled. "He ain't part of dis, he barely knows me! Yo' leave him out of dis!" 

"What are you raving about?" the angel asked. 

Remy felt a blush staining his cheeks. " 'M guessin' yo' ain't de one who took mon ami, hein?" he said. "Let's say we forget 'bout dis an' go 'bout our business." 

"You have no friends, just people you use," the angel accused. "People who's trust you abuse." 

"Yo' don' know rien 'bout me," Remy said angrily, heading for the fire escape. "An' I don' have time for dis!" 

"Right, you need to find your 'friend'," the angel said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Don't you mean victim?" 

Remy hit the roof, diving under the angel's attack. He twisted as he fell, throwing a lightly charged card to knock the angel away then scrambled down the fire escape. 

Three floors down he dodged behind the ladder to escape another attack. "I don' wan' to hurt yo', so cut it de hell out!" Remy yelled. 

"Was that supposed to be a joke?" the angel asked, using a wing to slice through the ladder. 

Remy dove for the next level down. A card impacted against the angel's chest knocking him out of the air. "I warned yo'!" he yelled. 

****** ****** ****** 

Peter lay in bed staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. "What if he got in trouble," Peter thought to himself. "He said he was coming back." 

"Not like I'm sleeping anyway," Peter sighed reaching for his costume. 

Several minutes later Spidey was making his way back into the city. 

"I probably won't even be able to find that place again," Spidey muttered under his breath. "Of course if he's there, he doesn't need my help, but where else am I going to start looking." 

Spidey found the subway entrance where he'd exited then started wracking his brains for the path to the abandoned subway car. 

****** ****** ******* 

The narrow alley didn't restrict the angel's freedom to maneuver nearly as much as it should have Remy thought resentfully as he dodged behind a dumpster, wincing at the shriek of protest as unbelievably sharp wings cut through the heavy metal container. 

Remy tried chasing him off by projecting fear into his mind as he'd done to Scrambler, but his powers bounced off a barricade of solid hatred. The intensity of the emotion precluded feeling anything else. 

Even though he'd only intended to use his powers to project emotions the backlash from Remy's brief contact with the angel's mind was enough to leave him stunned. 

The angel took advantage of Remy's pause, grabbing his wrist in a bruisingly hard grasp and winging skyward. Remy felt his shoulder joint protesting the abuse, but it all happened so quickly that they were clearing the buildings before he had a chance to react. 

Moments later whether or not to struggle was a moot point, even if he managed to land on a roof-top Remy knew the fall would still kill him. 

"Do you like feeling helpless?" the angel hissed. "Being at the mercy of one who has none?" 

The angel let Remy fall only to catch him again a moment later by his ankle. 

"At any moment you could die," the angel continued conversationally. "There's nothing you can do to change that. Any moment for weeks, months, years! Two years of waiting to die in agony! You can't even comprehend what you did to me!" 

Remy's stomach leapt into his throat as he began to fall again. He forced himself to relax into the fall, trying to slow it as much as possible, giving himself every chance to survive. There was almost no chance and surviving the sort of injuries he was bound to suffer might be a fate worse than death but Remy didn't know how to do anything else. Questioning the coast of survival had never been a luxury Remy could afford. 

Closing his eyes as the pavement rushed toward him wasn't his style, so Remy knew exactly how close he came to death before being snatched into the air again with a force that knocked the breath from his body. 

"That would be too easy," the angel hissed as they rocketed over the streets. Then the angel dove into a subway entrance. He tossed Remy roughly across the ground. The boy rolled a few times before gaining control of his momentum. 

"Does this remind you of any place?" the angel demanded, standing over the kneeling boy. "Do you remember the Morlocks or are there so many victims in your past that the face blur together? Do you remember Mike, little Michelle; you were her first crush. She loved your eyes, thought it gave you something in common. Of course she only looked like a demon." 

"M' memory is fine Wings," Remy said still struggling to recover his breath. "Yo' got a point or yo' jus' like to hear yourself talk?" 

"I want you to understand what you did!" the angel said angrily. "I should have know it was impossible for one of Sinister's creatures to feel remorse." 

"Yo' ought look in de mirror 'fore callin' me Essex's creature," Remy spat, feeling bruised, battered and generally fed up with the situation. He didn't have the time for this now. 

The unthinking taunt sent the angel into a blind rage and Remy found himself pushing his reflexes and agility to their limits to avoid a hail of knife-like fletchlets flung from the angel's wings. 

The angel was about to initiate a second attack when a sharp tug, similar to what a fish on a line might feel, yanked him backward. He turned, a casual flick of a wing severing the line and saw a slight young man in a bright red and blue costume opposing him. 

"Back off birdie!" Spidey exclaimed, placing himself between the two. "He's a friend of mine." 

"He's the herald of Satan," the angel replied. "A fact you'll learn to your regret if you extend him your trust. He destroys everything he touches." 

"So says you," Spidey replied. "I mean I know he saved my life and I can see you attacking him." 

"I would have protected you," the angel said. "But if you're already so lost to his wiles I'll go through you to ensure that you are his last victim." 

"Non!" Remy cried as the angel launched another barrage of fletchlets at them. Spidey could have easily avoided the attack but he didn't get the chance. Remy shoved him to the ground and sent a handful of cards flying to intercept the daggers. 

It almost worked, but when the air cleared Remy was bleeding profusely from a gash across his temple and one of the blades was embedded in his arm, a red stain slowly forming around it. 

Remy's eyes blazed angrily. "Yo' won' hurt no one on m' account, comprendras!" he yelled driving the angel back with another fan of cards. 

Warren frowned at Remy in confusion and Spidey hit him with a blast of webbing. He kept layering on the sticky substance until the angel was well and truly glued to the subway wall. 

"Even with those ginsu knife wings it's going to take time to cut free of that mess," Peter thought. "Come on Gambit," he said. "We'll leave him for S.H.I.E.L.D. or someone to pick up." 

Remy nodded distractedly. "Yo' don' understand what was happenin'," he told Warren. "I was only tryin' to help people. I don' want to hurt yo' but I won' let yo' kill me. An I don' care how screwed up yo' might have gotten or who's to blame, yo' don' evah threaten mes amies again, d'accord?" 

****** ****** ****** 

Peter finished bandaging Remy's arm. "I guess it's my turn to ask if you want to got to the hospital," he said. 

"Non," Remy replied settling back on one of the benches in the abandoned subway car. "No reason to bother dem for a little scratches like dese." 

Peter made a sound of disbelief. "Yeah right, those are nothing to worry about and loosing Mulder didn't hurt the X-Files." Off Remy's look he added. "And I'm the pot calling the kettle black. Okay it doesn't look like you're going to bleed to death so it's your choice." 

Remy nodded and the two settled into an uncomfortable silence. 

"So... um... what was with that guy?" Peter asked after a few minutes. 

"Don' want to talk 'bout him," Gambit said shortly. 

"You didn't... you aren't..." Peter began awkwardly, not feeling much like Spiderman at that moment, despite the costume. 

"I ain't a monster," Gambit said. More quietly he added, "I jus' worked for one once. I didn't know." 

Silence descended again. After a time Gambit got up to leave. At the door he paused. "What'd yo' do wid m' pack?" he asked carelessly. 

"Nothing why?" Peter asked, then exclaimed. "You're not going back for that statue!" 

"An' m' tools, dey ain't cheap yo' know," Gambit replied with a shrug. 

"Gambit, you stole that thing, it doesn't belong to you," Peter protested. 

Gambit glanced over his shoulder and Peter caught a gleam of a predatory smile. "If I stole it, it mus' be mine, else what's de point?" 

"Look, with your powers don't you ever think maybe you've got a responsibility to be better than that?" Peter asked. 

"I helped save de femme tonight. I saved yo'. I help where I can, when I know I am helpin' not makin' t'ings worse. I don' hurt no one if I can 'void it. I don' owe de world more dan dat." Gambit said with solid conviction. "Yo' gonna try to stop me?" 

"No," Peter sighed. "Not tonight anyways. For all you know the statue's worthless." 

****** ****** ****** 

"Peter you seem tired this morning," Aunt May said watching him plop into a chair at the breakfast table. "Are you feeling alright? Did you go down to the lab after I went to bed?" 

"I'm fine, just didn't sleep too well," Peter said. "I just... I thought I made a friend the other day, we had a lot of stuff in common..." 

"But?" Aunt May asked. 

"Yeah," Peter sighed. "There's always one of those isn't there?" 

Aunt May gave him a sympathetic smile before picking up the Daily Bugle. "Oh not that dreadful Spiderman again." 

Hiding a grimace Peter went to read over his Aunt's shoulder. The thought "Why me?" popped into his head as he saw the headlines about Spiderman being seen near the scene of a museum robbery. He choked on the bagel he was eating when he saw that the missing statuette had been estimated at a value of $50,000. 

****** ****** ****** 

Remy paid the taxi driver, swung his duffle bag over his shoulder and whistling cheerfully he started toward the mansion's front steps. 

"Hey! C'est Remy," he said activating the intercom with a brush of his elbow. " 'M back!" 

Without bothering to waiting for a reply he let himself in. 

For a long moment Remy simply stood there in the stripped lobby. Gradually his duffle bag slid off his shoulder, when it hit the ground Remy started at the hollow echoing sound it made. 

"I guess askin' if any one be home would fall under de category of a stupid question," he said sounding lost. 

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	9. Government Intervention: 1 of 6

**Government Intervention**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Continuity Notes: This story takes place during "Ultimate War". Magneto's back from the dead (from the public's perspective, actually he's just escaped Xavier's brainwashing and is back to his old human hating, terrorist self), the Ultimates, SHEILD and the US government are mad because Xavier didn't kill Magneto when he had the chance, and because he told them he had, the X-Men are in hiding. 

Also I need to go back to "Guild Life" and change things so Scott and Logan rescue Remy on their way to the Savage Land rather than on their way home, because Scott didn't come home with Logan and Kitty, and was believed dead during the "Ultimate War". 

Part 1/6 

Remy stood in the empty hall trying to comprehend how his friends could just be gone. Only three days ago he'd called the school to let them know he didn't need to be picked up at the airport and now they were gone. Not just out on the mission but packed up, moved out, took everything but the kitchen sink, never to return gone. 

One hope remaining Remy headed toward the elevator. Given Xavier's handicap no one would ever think twice about it's presence, but if a person held the basement level button down while simultaneously pressing a floor number the mansion's various sublevels could be accessed through it. In rapid succession Remy entered the combinations for the hanger, danger room and finally the med-lab; stubbornly the elevator remained still. Remy hit the buttons again, more forcefully. Finally he out and out punched the panel. 

After an interval of feeling hopeless Remy said, " 'Kay, it be locked. De lock implies dere's somet'ing of value left down dere to be protected. No reason to lock a bunch of empty rooms, neh? So dey will come back, dey only want people to t'ink de place be deserted. Yo' jus' need to wait for dem." 

As he talked, Remy wandered through the mansion, opening doors. Checking cupboards and closets. "Dey knew I was comin', dey could of left me a clue," he complained. 

"Face it Remy, dey forgot 'bout yo'," he sighed. "Mebbe it wasn't safe, yo' should pro'ably head back down to N'leans, Scott or Logan'll call yo' when t'ings be straightened out. What if t'ings don' get fixed? Be nice to know what happened, mebbe somet'ing I could do to help. Wouldn't hurt rien if I stuck 'round for a bit an' looked for dem." 

Later that day Remy made his way back into town to lift the various things he'd need to say at the mansion. 

Seeing a payphone he stopped "Moment of truth," he sighed. "Yo' goin' home to N'leans or yo' stayin' hear an' lookin' for de X-Men?" 

Remy dialed the number and waited for his Oncle to answer. 

"Lebeau here," a tense voice answered. 

"Comment cava Oncle," Remy replied cheerily. 

"Remy," Jean-Luc sighed. "Yo' wid your friends petite?" 

"Oui," Remy said. He was surprised to learn that lying to his oncle made him feel guilty, but he had a feeling that Jean-Luc would want him home if he knew how wrong things were here. 

"Bien. It be bettah if yo' were here," Jean-Luc said. "Mais at least yo' ain't 'lone... Wish dat madman done blow up his bridge a bit sooner. Mon Dieu, I send yo' right into de heart of de mess. 

Remy waited, wishing he'd actually paid attention to the news in the last few days, afraid if he said anything his oncle would pick up on his lie. 

"Remy be careful," Jean-Luc said. "De mood people be in, dey kill yo' for bein' a mutant, won' mattah dat yo' an' de X-Men been stylin' yourself as heroes, or dat yo've rien to do wid Magneto. Mobs ain't likely to give yo' time to 'xplain dat." 

"Know all 'bout mobs Oncle Luc, yo' don' have to worry 'bout dat," Remy said. 

"Course yo' do," Jean-Luc said unhappily. "Mais let me be a pa'ent. Merde, I wish yo' were here. 'M shor yo' know yo're safest goin' to ground. Wid your X-Men yo' got more dan 'nough firepower to deal wid most anyt'ing if yo' do get found. Don' forget yo' got family Remy, if yo' have to run let me help. If all else fails I'll get yo' out of de country 'til t'ings settle." 

"Oui Oncle." 

"Bien, take care of yourself petite. Call me 'gain when yo' can." 

Remy hung-up slowly, his hand lingering on the phone, wondering if he should call back, tell Jean-Luc everything, let him figure out how to fix things. Do like Jean-Luc said and let him be the parent. 

"Yo' getting' soft boy," he told himself. First the X-Men then the Thieves Guild, he was getting use to depending on someone else being there if he wanted them. 

Getting in trouble and being the rebellious teenager was fun, he thought, when you had someone to rebel against and someone to bail you out if anything went wrong. 

"Don' need no one to take care of me," Remy reminded himself. "I know how to take care of m'self… Mais I don' know how to find no one, leas' not quiet like." 

****** ****** ****** 

"Welcome to time wasting 101," Tony Stark said with a negligent wave of his hand. 

Thor clasped Tony on the shoulder. "I too have reservations about involving the child, however he is a know associate of the X-Men and as strong a lead as we've been able to find." 

"That kid know less about where the X-Men are than we do," Tony said shaking his head. "If he leads us to the X-Men I'll forego alcohol for a week." 

"Perhaps not a lead," Thor admitted. "But they may yet return for him. I sense that we are not the only ones watching him." 

"Well Thor-buddy, I'll leave you to it, cause honestly, this kid isn't interesting enough to entertain one viewer let alone a couple," Tony replied getting up to leave. 

****** ****** ****** 

Remy paused, snatching a quick glance at the sky. He'd felt like he had a bull's eye painted on his back since arriving at the Mansion but the air crackling with barely restrained hate was a new development, one that brought Warren to mind. 

Remy settled into Scott's empty room, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the spot where the couch was supposed to be. He cleared his mind of memories of time spent here while Scott tried to share his love of video games and Remy tried to figure out how an X-Box could hold the older teen's interest when they had the danger room just downstairs. Of course Scott always did have an impregnable wall in his mind separating fun and training. 

Once his mind was clear Remy tentatively reached out with his powers. Keeping his shields at maximum while trying to use his empathy offensively was like trying to speak while simultaneously holding his breath, but having felt the virulent hatred that filled Warren's mind when he had confronted the winged mutant the night before, Remy did his best to do just that. 

Projecting fear at the vengeful angel hadn't worked, so Remy tried something more subtle. Broadcasting his own hatred and fear of Sinister; he tried to shift Warren's focus away from himself. 

"It wasn't m' fault," Remy told himself. "Scott said so, Logan an' Oncle Luc don' blame me for trustin' Sinister either. 'M not gonna hurt anyone. Sinister, he's still out dere. He needs to be stopped. Why don' yo' pester him Wings?" 

Remy continued his efforts until the source of the hatred he felt faded with distance. Then he got up and wandered down the hall, his hand trailing along the wood paneling. 

With so much interest being displayed in him he couldn't go looking for the X-Men, they wouldn't come back for him. He didn't even dare try breaking into the mansion's lower levels because it might clue his observers in to their existence. Not that he was certain that he could get in, Charles Xavier's idea of security was a far sight from that of museum and government buildings he and his friends broke into for their amusement, even the fortress-like homes of the criminals he'd robbed with Jean-Luc had nothing on the security measures in place at the mansion. 

New Orleans was looking more and more appealing as Remy was forced to acknowledge how little he could accomplish in Westchester and as loneliness set in. 

Remy wandered around the empty house until he couldn't stand the hollow, deserted feel of it anymore. He considered heading into Salem Center but the town was too small and the chances of running into someone who would remember what his sun glasses hid or having seen him with the X-Men was too large. 

Eventually he climbed up onto the roof. Lying back on the sun- warmed tiles, Remy pretended nothing was wrong and that someone would turn up in a few hours yelling for him to come in for dinner. 

Remy was drifting between wakefulness and sleep when a tendril of dark, angry confusion jolted him back to full awareness. He rolled to his feet dodging Warren's attack. 

"Not yo' 'gain!" Remy exclaimed, filling his hands with cards. "T'ought yo' found somet'ing bettah to do." 

"I have to understand," Warren said. "You protected that other boy." 

"Tol' yo' he's mon ami, my friend," Remy replied, his stance defensive. "I tol' yo' I didn't know what Sinister be up to." 

"How can I believe you?" Warren asked. "Your lies sound better than any truth." 

"I nevah lied!" Remy cried. "I believe him." 

"Look what trusting you did to me!" Warren exclaimed, spreading his metal wings wide. 

"Mais why yo' ask if yo' won' listen?" Remy asked. "I tol' yo' what happened. Now leave me be or get dis over wid, I don' care anymore!" 

Warren held up a syringe, "I have an alternative." 

"Quoi? What's dat?" Remy asked suspiciously. 

"Truth serum," Warren said. "Take it then we talk or we fight." 

"Hell no!" Remy yelled. "Yo' attacked me! 'M not putting anyt'ing yo' give me in m' veins." 

"Have it your way," Warren said slipping the hypodermic back in his pocket and flinging a battery of fletchlets at the younger mutant. 

Gambit evaded the first attack, used a shield of charged dust particles to deflect the second then threw a card at Warren to force the angel back. 

Warren climbed higher into the sky and continued his attack, letting gravity and the nature of Gambit's projectiles work against him while Warren's blades retained their full effectiveness. 

A combination of agility and explosions kept Gambit one step ahead of Warren's deadly hail of knives but he knew time and the odds were against him. 

"Don' yo' evah run out of dose t'ings?" Gambit yelled. 

"No," Warren said. 

"Now dat ain't fair," Gambit complained, allowing himself to be driven toward the far edge of the roof. 

"I didn't choose to be like this," Warren replied as Remy turned and sprinted back across the roof taking several cuts from Warren's fletchlets rather than sacrificing the momentum he was building. About a yard short of Warren's position he telescoped out his bo staff and used it to vault into the sky. 

The suicidal insanity of Gambit's plan was enough to keep Warren from reacting to it and they collided in mid-air. 

Gambit felt warm blood trickling down his side as Warren's bladed wings flailed at the air. Together they crashed to the roof. Remy took the brunt of the fall, leaving him stunned and pinned beneath Warren's mass. 

Warren's hands locked around Remy's throat but their earlier confrontation and Remy's words had awakened old doubts and questions. The image of a half starved twelve-year-old rose in Warren's mind and he found himself hesitating. Before Remy could recover his breath or the initiative Warren dug the hypodermic out and plunged it into the side of his neck. 

Warren moved back from the teen, giving the drugs a chance to take effect. 

Remy staggered to his feet and threw the syringe away from him. "What'd yo' do to me?" he asked feeling his mental shields beginning to slip despite his best efforts to hold them in place. 

"I told you, it's truth serum," Warren said harshly. "Now tell me; why did you help Sinister do this to me?" 

The full force of Warren's rage and feelings of betrayal, loss and confusion slammed into Remy's unprotected mind. "Arret! Stop dis!" Remy pled stumbling toward Warren. "It hurts." 

"Tell me," Warren demanded, catching Remy's wrists. 

"Yo' hurt so bad," Remy whispered, his strange eyes locking on Warren's for a moment then sliding past him as his shields opened even further. 

Then it wasn't just Warren's emotions battering at his mind, there were the people in the neighboring estates, the city of Salem Center, New York, more and more people, their fears and passions all pouring into his mind. 

At first it was the strong feelings that were the worst: hate, love, terror, joy overwhelming that which was Remy. After a few moments even the less extreme emotions were torture due to the shear multitude of them, flooding through his abused mind. 

"Stop it!" Remy screamed trying to push all the alien feelings away from him, but it was like trying to bail out the ocean with a teaspoon. 

A nearly palatable wave of emotion struck Warren driving him away from Remy. As he released the boy Remy's knees buckled. 

Warren hovered several yards above the roof, his mouth sagging open in shock, unable to approach. Remy lay crumpled where he'd fallen, totally insensitive to the world around him. 

****** ****** ****** 

Down below, across the street from the mansion Thor frowned. "I will not stand by while a child is harmed, regardless of the company he keeps," he said. "Steve can find another lead." 

He strode across the mansion's grounds and began his ascent to the roof when a wave of emotion broke over him with the force of a tsunami. 

Thor's grasp slipped and he fell to the ground. Standing he found himself reluctant to approach, almost physically driven back by the psychic mire. 

"The son of Odin does not fear the pain of the world," he told himself sternly and began climbing again. 

On the roof he found the russet haired boy collapsed limp and still. The blue-skinned angel hovered above, his expression uncertain. Thor dismissed him as irrelevant then went to check on the boy. He pressed his fingers to Remy's throat and was alarmed to feel his pulse alternately racing and faltering. 

"Send a medical unit to Xavier's," Thor said into his head set as he scooped Remy into his arms and began looking for the easiest path down. 

Several fletchlets embedded themselves into the roof at Thor's feet. "You can't take him," Warren said. "I haven't judged him yet." 

"Your trial would win acclaim from the Inquisition," Thor said angrily shifting Remy to grasp his hammer. 

Warren retreated a little. "I didn't mean to hurt him. I couldn't let him lie anymore." 

"And now he's dying," Thor said coldly. 

This time when Thor moved toward the edge of the roof Warren made no attempt to stop him. 

After a moment's consideration Thor leapt from the roof, landing in a crouch to absorb the impact. Warren settled to the earth several yards away, his wings twitching in agitation. 

In the distance they heard sirens approaching. 

"Thor, what's going on out there?" Captain America demanded over the radio. "The ambulance team says they won't come any closer." 

"Have them leave the ambulance," Thor replied. "I will take care of things." 

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	10. Government Intervention: 2 of 6

**Government Intervention**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 2/6 

Thor's arrival at the Triskelion was a unique event. He'd had to abandon the ambulance as they entered the city and the heavy traffic had forced other cars increasingly closer until the drivers, desperate to escape the barrage of emotion Remy was projecting, fled their cars making the streets impassible. 

Thor did what he could to stabilize Remy with the ambulance's supplies then started walking. Warren trailed after them several yards back, but still much closer than anyone else. 

Ironman had tried to offer assistance, without luck, then headed back to the base. "Steve, forget getting one of the holding cells equipped as an infirmary, we don't want this kid anywhere near Banner." 

"Thor never did explain what happened." 

"All I know is at thirty feet I didn't want to get any closer," Tony reported. "At twenty I was about ready to crawl out of my skin and if my life had depended on it I couldn't have gotten within fifteen feet of that kid." 

"How is Thor doing it?" Steve asked. 

"Hell if I know. You'll have to ask our resident god," Tony replied. "Damn good thing he used to be a nurse, cause no one else is going to be able to treat the kid. He didn't look good. God, I need a drink." 

****** ****** ****** 

Warren trailed after Thor, guilt and rage tearing at each other in his mind, however both agreed he couldn't leave Gambit behind. Whether the boy was Sinister's dupe or willing apprentice Warren needed this finished. 

Between his internal turmoil and that generated by Gambit Warren barely noticed his surroundings until he found himself cut off from the object of his obsession by the featureless steel doors of an elevator. 

Warren turned from the elevator only to find his path blocked by a costumed man and some sort of robot thing. 

Warren vividly remembered the Sentential he'd dismembered during their brief reign of terror and spread his wings defensively, his eyes narrowing angrily. He sent a volley of fletchlets at them. 

Captain America ducked behind his shield; the knives bounced harmlessly off of Ironman's armor. 

"Warren Worthington?" Tony exclaimed in stunned disbelief. 

Hearing his name used for the first time in years Warren froze. A moment later Captain America's shield slammed into the side of his head, rendering him unconscious. 

Warren awoke sometime later only to find himself in a holding cell and promptly went crazy, trying to batter his way out and screaming death threats at anyone who cared to listen. 

****** ****** ****** 

Nick Fury glanced across his desk at the three Ultimates gathered there. "Alright, I come back from the Whitehouse to find the bottom three floors of my headquarters off limits because of some mutant kid who was supposed to lead us to the X-Men and a very agitated, not to mention blue-skinned heir to a multi-billion dollar corporation trying to tear apart one of my holding cells. Anyone care to enlighten me on what I've missed?" 

"Remy Lebeau was given sodium amytal, the dosage was high for his body mass but not dangerously so," Thor reported, for the moment sounding as much the nurse he'd been as the god he'd become. "However, the side effects due to his mutation are proving devastating." 

"Truth serum and 'paths," Fury said shaking his head. "Nasty combo. I've never heard of one reacting with a defensive shield like this one before." 

Thor frowned disapprovingly. "I was not aware tests had been done to examine the effects of such drugs on mutants." 

"Relax," Fury said. "I may have read the Weapon X program's files, but I never agreed with their methods. That's why we shut them down. Do you have an estimate on when the kid will come out of it?" 

"Your reports could probably give you a better idea than I could," Thor said, his voice still disapproving. "With the amount of turmoil he's projecting I was concerned that he wouldn't retain enough sense of self to reassert his mental shields." 

"The telepaths Weapon X experimented on all came out of it without assistance," Fury said. 

Thor nodded shortly. "I have a patient to attend to," he said dismissing himself. 

"How's our other guest doing?" Fury asked. 

"He's calmer," Tony said. "We're misting the air in his cell with a sedative, it seems to be helping his mood." 

"We're sure this is the Worthington heir? I don't remember the papers saying he was blue," Fury asked. 

"He wasn't," Tony said. "I did some business with his dad, saw him at a couple of parties, the blue skin tones are new, but it's the same kid." 

"Shit, lets hope the media didn't get a good look at him," Fury said. "The last thing I need is his parents lobbying for his release." 

"With Lebeau out of the game we're back to square one on finding the X-Men, unless we use him as bait," Steve Rogers pointed out. 

"Not quite," Fury said. "Lebeau might not be as well connected as Worthington, but the ones he's got might be more useful to us." 

****** ****** ****** 

Jean-Luc Lebeau did not look like a happy man as he set up his computer for a hopefully untraceable two-way conversation. 

He didn't mind fostering good will by selling the government information about things he didn't want to happen anyway, but he didn't like them contacting him. 

"You're new at your job," he typed. "Maybe no one explained free-lance to you yet?" 

"You've been known to provide assistance when traditional information sources run dry," Nick Fury replied. 

Jean-Luc frowned thoughtfully, wondering if he could steer the government team away from Remy and the X-Men. "What's troubling you General?" 

"I'm sure you can guess." 

"Magneto is a little out of my area of interest; his type of enterprise doesn't accumulate enough money to make the risk worth it, but I'll ask around," Jean-Luc replied. 

"How about the X-Men?" Fury asked. 

"Aren't they friends of yours?" Jean-Luc asked. 

"I think you know otherwise," Fury wrote back. "And I know you've already made those inquiries. Why don't you share, I can make it worth your while." 

"Why would I have done that?" Jean-Luc asked, a sinking feeling settling into his stomach. "You know I don't care about philanthropists, no matter how rich." 

"Remy Lebeau." 

Jean-Luc stared at the name on the screen for a long moment. He wasn't surprised that Fury knew who he was despite his apparent effort to remain anonymous; that was part of the game they played. How could he buy a blind eye if they didn't know who they weren't supposed to be looking at? He was surprised that SHIELD would contact him through this channel if they wanted to discuss his nephew's alliances. 

"We both know I'm not going to tell you anything that could threaten Remy," Jean-Luc typed. 

"You misunderstand, we want to help Remy," Fury replied. 

"I'm not naïve," Jean-Luc sent back, insulted that the other man would even bother. 

"Remy's been captured, it's in his best interest if he makes some sort of deal." 

"Two scenarios: 1) Remy isn't talking. In which case he won't thank me for going over his head. 2) You don't have him and think you've driven the X-Men far enough underground that I won't be able to verify it." 

"I could arrest you." 

"If you planned on doing that we wouldn't be talking." 

"Alright, Remy hasn't chosen to co-operate. He's young, sometimes parents have to do what's best for a child even if the child doesn't agree," Fury argued. 

"Remy isn't your typical sheltered teen," Jean-Luc replied. "I wouldn't presume to treat him like one." 

"His background only makes him more vulnerable to cults." 

"Now I know you haven't tried talking to him. If you have Remy, prove that the X-Men are with Magneto, I'm sure you'll find he's a very reasonable boy." 

Jean-Luc signed off with a sigh then picked up the phone. "Theoren, I need yo' to start lookin' into Magneto's organization. Talk to Renee and Dominic about infiltrating de Brotherhood of Mutants." 

"Guild Master, may I ask why? The profit to risk 'nalysis don' seem likely to be promisin'." 

"I got bien reason to t'ink de X-Men and government be too busy fussin' at each other to deal wid him less dey get a nudge in de proper direction," Jean-Luc replied. "Do yo' want to live under day madman's rule? Las' I checked 'round eighty percent of de Guild falls under his food or slaves classification." 

"D'accord, Guild Master." 

"Merci. Keep me informed. If I get called 'way Henri will act as m' stand in." 

Then Jean-Luc started looking for Henri. He found his son in the garage working on his motorcycle. 

"Your cousin seems to have gotten hisself in a mess," Jean-Luc said. 

"More so dan normal?" Henri asked looking concerned. 

"I 'xpect someone from de government to come sniffin' 'round, mebbe ask me to go talk some sense into de petite." 

"How can I help?" 

"If I get otherwise occupied, find out where dey're holdin' him. Start workin' on how to get him loose. I got Theoren lookin' for information on Magneto to trade dem. If all else fails yo' give dem de t'ings I collected on de X-Men an' Xavier." 

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	11. Government Intervention: 3 of 6

**Government Intervention**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 3/6 

Tony watched Warren pace his cell. Warren was calmer, thanks to the sedatives, but the erratic twitches in his wings gave testament to his continued, underlying, agitation. 

"Your parent thought you were killed," Tony told him quietly. 

Warren paused but didn't reply. 

"Biggest story of the year," Tony continued after a moment. "Hollywood even made a movie out of it. The family name, the mutant angle, the fact you disappeared off the face of the earth and no one ever dug up a single clue as to how or why despite the best detectives your parents could hire scowering the country. Can't remember if the movie went with the botched kidnapping theory or the hate crime one. Guess everyone missed the mark. What did happen Warren?" 

Warren turned to face Tony through the force field spreading his wings a little. "This happened. They're better off thinking I'm dead." 

"I don't know about that. Your dad keeps a picture of you in his office, I get the feeling he misses you pretty bad." 

"What happened to Gambit.. Remy?" Warren asked abruptly, changing the subject. When Tony didn't immediately reply he drew his own conclusions. "I killed him didn't I?" 

"Was that what you were trying to do?" 

"I thought about it for years," Warren admitted. 

"Seemed like a pretty convoluted way of going about it," Tony said noncommittally. "How do you feel about it now?" 

"Sick," Warren said quietly. "I should have killed Sinister not Remy, he was just a little kid." 

Tony smiled a little. "Remy's condition is improving," he told Warren. "His blood work's clean, the activity in his brain is starting to look human. When Thor brought him in the electrical and chemical activity were off the charts, it's still high, but at least we can monitor it now." 

Warren looked relieved. 

"He's still pretty out of it, no response to external stimulus, our working theory is shock," Tony continued. "Sodium Amytal works because it lowers your defenses, it's not a magic potion. You give it to someone, ask them leading questions and hope they'll confirm your guesses because they're too fucked up to think about keeping secrets. Telepaths, and whatever Lebeau is, have barriers in their minds that normal people don't, defenses to keep themselves apart from the rest of the world in spite of their powers. You took those away. At the very least you exposed him to an extreme sensory overload and he shut down mentally for the moment to protect himself." 

"At worst?" Warren asked. 

"He stays catatonic, his sense of self is so screwed up he can't figure out where to put his shields because he can't differentiate his mind from the people around him. Even if that doesn't happen, unless he has one hell of a strong sense of self his personality could have been rewritten." 

"I didn't mean for this to happen," Warren said. 

****** ****** ****** 

His mind felt like someone had taken sandpaper to it; raw, a tangled mass of exposed nerves. There were things constantly brushing against his awareness; they burned, they grated, they prodded, they froze, they hurt. 

He wanted them to all go away. He pushed them away with the pain they gave him and they pulled back but not far enough, never far enough. 

He remembered having a hiding place, a cool soothing cocoon that was not quite here. While he was there the others slid around him like ghosts, insubstantial and harmless. From his sanctuary he could reach out and touch or be touched as he chose, but he'd been drug out into the open and the frail surface of him had been worn away and is was JUST TOO MUCH. 

He sobbed with relief when his scrabbling fingers finally found purchase and he pulled open the entrance to his place. He slid inside and pulled the flap closed behind him, pressing against it until the opening vanished. He wondered if he could seal it closed to keep all the hurtful things away from him. 

Even though he knew he was safe now he wanted to be further away from the sources of his pain. He couldn't push them away anymore, not from within his hiding place, and they were coming closer to him now. It didn't hurt anymore, but he remembered the pain and it frightened him. 

At first he ignored them, hoping if he didn't react they wouldn't think he was real and would go do something else. It didn't matter, there was something around him that fascinated them, they kept prodding at it, testing it. 

****** ****** ****** 

Nick Fury glanced around the infirmary. "This place isn't secure," he pointed out. "Lebeau isn't projecting that shield of his anymore, move him up to the holding cells." 

Doctor Brankin looked at him incredulously. "What if he starts again?" 

"Then we move him back downstairs," Fury said. 

"Not if Thor's out we won't," the doctor said bluntly. "He shouldn't even be in the same building as Dr. Banner. I think I'd go insane if I were trapped in the proximity of his psionic projections. Trust me General, even our containment cells wouldn't hold the Hulk under those conditions." 

Fury glared at the comatose teen who was doing so much to disrupt his operation. They couldn't put him in a holding cell because of the Hulk, hadn't been able to transfer him elsewhere because until just an hour ago Thor was the only person who could treat him. They couldn't use drugs to negate his powers because their staff telepaths all felt that would delay his recovery and he was still their best lead on the X-Men. 

Fury decided he was going to fire whoever it was that decided hand cuffing the kid to the bed frame was an adequate security measure. "Doctor, why isn't he under guard?" Fury asked in what he felt was a reasonable tone. 

Dr. Brankin jumped, "Well... um... Sir, it seemed like a waste of man power, he's comatosed and now that he's in the infirmary it's not likely that we'd miss signs of his returning to consciousness." 

"Such as movement?" Fury asked pointing to the ring of reddened skin around Remy's wrist. As they watched his hand jerked, tugging against the restraint. 

"I'll get right on that," Brankin said swallowing softly. 

****** ****** ****** 

His wrist ached Remy thought then paused for a moment to ponder the implications of that statement. 

His wrist. His body; that was what the others kept fussing with. How could he have missed that? 

He'd let it shut down when his empathy had been overwhelmed by the city. Now that he'd finally been able to close down that sense the rest were coming back on line. 

He realized if he wanted them to leave him alone he should hide his body as well as his mind. He needed to leave. 

Only his wrist was tied to something and he could sense them, right there, standing over him. 

Cringing in anticipation of pain he tentatively reached out of his protective cocoon and encouraged their feelings of overwhelming urgency. It was strangely easy to do, with his skewed perceptions they were nothing more than blobs of emotion and potential energy. He thought about releasing that energy, dispersing the others into harmless nothingness, but the thought of unbinding the housing around those blobs of emotion made him shudder. Instead he pressed against the emotions themselves. 

"I ain't 'portant," Remy said, his voice a cracked, uncertain whisper. "Jus' 'nore me. Got bettah t'ings to worry 'bout dan me. Bad t'ings happenin', I ain't wort' yo' 'tention..." 

He felt the swirls of emotion shift and refocus, felt their confusion at what they were doing here and knew he'd succeeded. With a sigh of relief he withdrew back into his protective cocoon. 

Once they left he dissolved the thing binding his wrist in place and rolled off the bed, falling to his knees. Concentrating Remy found his balance and staggered to his feet. 

He blinked a few times and squinted to catch a blurry glance of the room rather than the potential energy it contained. 

Remy stumbled toward an air vent and collapsed in front of it. At first he tried to pry it free with his fingernails, when that failed he ran the tips of his fingers over it, feeling out the bolt heads and blowing them up with his power. Then he crawled inside. He worked his way down and out, blindly feeling his way through the molasses of potential energy that he sensed around him. 

****** ****** ****** 

"He is gone," Thor announced striding into Nick Fury's office. 

Fury glanced up from his phone call, looking harried and annoyed. "Who's gone?" 

"The boy, Remy Lebeau," Thor replied. 

"Oh him," Fury said unconcerned. "Didn't I have him transferred to the X-Factor camp with the other mutants?" 

"No," Thor said. "He is not here, he has not been moved. Dr. Brankin does not remember having him as a patient." 

Fury thought about it for a moment. "He's not important. According to yourself and Stark his knowledge of the X-Men was limited and out of date. If we pull Jean-Luc Lebeau in now we can still use the kid as a bargaining chip. He isn't Professor Grey, I know he didn't just take Xavier's word for things." 

"What about Remy?" Thor asked. "His condition was hardly stable." 

"What about him?" Fury replied. "He's too screwed up to be much use to anyone, he's not worth the manpower it would take to look for him. He's not important." 

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	12. Government Intervention: 4 of 6

**Government Intervention**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 4/6 

The blonde girl slammed the mansion door behind her angrily. "De boy said he'd be here, dere ain't no one here. I need to talk wid him now! Ain't got de time for dis." 

Belle dug a cell phone out of her backpack and dialed back to New Orleans. After a few minutes Henri Lebeau answered with a distracted "Quoi?" 

"Where de hell is your no 'count cousin!" Belle demanded. "I come all de way to N'York an' he ain't here!" 

"Who is dis?" Henri snapped. 

"Belladonna Boudreaux an' I gotta talk to dat boyfriend of mine so yo' damn well bettah tell me where to find him or I'll kill yo' de next time I see yo'," Belle threatened. 

"Dat'll be de day," Henri snorted. " 'M not dumb 'nough to fall for dat innocent little girl t'ing of yours. Does your pere know where yo' are?" 

" 'Course he does," Belle said rationalizing that her daddy could put two and two together better than most and if he didn't know where she'd gone he ought to. "An' he ain't gonna be happy if I don' get to talk to Remy!" 

"Look, mon pere is up dere tryin' to get Remy home, so whatever yo' want wid him can jus' wait 'til den," Henri said then hung up on her. 

Belle felt a cool tendril of worry working it's way through her anger. "If Jean-Luc knows where Remy is I'll jus' have to talk to him firs'," she said firmly. 

She called another number. "Singer-chere, I need a petite favor. Could yo' find out who Daddy has watching Jean-Luc?" 

"Dis 'bout yo' bein'..." Singer asked. 

"Oui, jus' find out 'kay?" 

"If I can' find dat I'll sweet talk Pierre into tellin' me," Singer promised. "Might have to 'xplain why yo' want to talk to Remy so bad dough." 

Belle sighed. "Fine, whatever, jus' don' tell Rabbit. De boy's de wors' gossip I evah met." 

****** ****** ****** 

"Nice office," Jean-Luc commented, hands buried in his pockets, leaning back casually against the wall. 

"Glad you approve," Fury replied. "You want to tell me anything about the X-Men?" 

"Yo' want to tell me anyt'ing 'bout m' nephew?" Jean-Luc asked. "Come on homme we bot' know dis ain't how dis works. Yo' want to blackmail me into betrayin' Remy's friends yo' goin' to have to prove yo' got de goods. 'Sides I want to talk to Remy." 

Fury tossed a collapsed bo staff to Jean-Luc. "There's your proof," he said. 

"What are yo' a kidnapper?" Jean-Luc asked angrily, slipping the staff into his jacket. "I want to talk to Remy." 

"And I want to know what you found out about the X-Men," Fury replied. 

Jean-Luc shrugged. "Dey were backed by de Hellfire Club. Dat be a bunch of rich cultist, dey worship somet'ing called de Phoenix an' dey're all dead as of 'bout a week 'go. 'M info's a bit over de 'xpiration date." 

Fury glared. 

"It's not m' fault. Yo' should of asked las' month," Jean-Luc said. "Now let me see Remy or 'M leavin'." 

"You sure I'm going to let you leave without getting some satisfactory answers?" Fury asked. "You're services aren't indispensable to us and you are a criminal." 

"Yo' t'ink you're spies can replace me?" Jean-Luc replied. "Yo' know what a spy is? A t'ief wid a limited skill set." 

"I would have said a thief is little more than a spy without a sense of allegiance," Fury said. 

Jean-Luc chuckled. "Dat be a good one homme, spies havin' loyalties." Then in an instant the good-humored expression vanished from his face. "I been givin'..." 

"Selling." 

"... Sellin' yo' 'formation since I was sixteen. I don' sell anyt'ing 'bout yo' cause dis is m' home an' I want to protect it. If dis country gets too unwelcomin', if I can't protect m' family here, I'll move on. Den I got no reason to be loyal yo' see." 

"You wouldn't get the chance," Fury said. 

"What's to say it's not a'ready done?" Jean-Luc asked. " 'M a careful, untrustin' type. Yo' know dat or I wouldn' be here. 'M also more den a little vengeful." 

"Point taken," Fury said, gesturing toward the door. 

Jean-Luc nodded and turned to leave. After he was gone Fury walked out and leaned on the secretary's desk just outside of his office door. "So what was he thinking?" he asked. 

The woman looked up at him, baffled. "Sir, if I hadn't seen him walk out of your office with my own two eyes I would have sworn you'd spent the last fifteen minutes talking to yourself," she said. 

"That sneaky son of a bitch," Fury said, impressed. "What the hell was I thinking when I let that kid go?" He tapped the intercom button. "Tell Thor I've changed my mind; I'm sending him as many people as we can spare to help him find Remy Lebeau." 

****** ****** ****** 

"M. Lebeau!" a cheerful, exuberant, totally unexpected voice greeted Jean-Luc as he got off the elevator at the hotel. 

Jean-Luc glanced over the girl who was camped out in front of the door to his room with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. Belladonna had combed out the braids she normally wore and pulled her golden hair back in a simple ponytail that left her eyes looking huge and innocent. Dressed in a baby-doll tee shirt and low cut jeans she looked like a typical Brittney Spears wannabe. "She might get a second look wid clothes like dat," Jean-Luc thought. "Or a disapprovin' glare from any educator an' mos' pa'ents, but no one would think she was dangerous unless dey knew her." 

"Yo're 'bout de las' person I 'xpected to run into," Jean-Luc commented. 

"Mais, I wanted to see Remy," Belle said. "Only dere wasn't no one at dat school of his. I got worried an' when I heard yo' were in town naturally I t'ought I should look yo' up an' find out what's become of him." 

"Yo' been watchin' de news lately chere?" Jean-Luc asked. 

"What's de news evah got to do wid me?" Belle replied impatience and agitation creeping into her voice despite her training and awareness that Jean-Luc was being followed. "I got m' own problems dat be more 'portant dan any stupid terrorist scare. I need to see Remy!" 

"Act your age femme," Jean-Luc reprimanded. "Yo' be an embarrassment to your pere actin' like dis. Now come on an' let's walk, I been trapped in planes an' meetin's all day, need to stretch m' legs." 

"Oui M." Belle replied chastised. 

"Lemme get m' shoes changed," Jean-Luc said, giving a reason he'd come up to the room in the first place for anyone listening. 

A few minutes later they exited the hotel and quickly blended into the sea of humanity that flooded the streets of Manhattan. 

"You know how to block psi's?" Jean-Luc asked quietly in French. 

"Don't need to," Belle replied in the same language. "Most of the Assassin's Guild has natural blocks." 

"The Thieves are the same," Jean-Luc replied. "Alright, that terrorist you dismissed so blithely wants mutants ruling the world in six months. The government is too stupid to tell one mutant from another so they went after Remy and his friends. Of course it doesn't help things that Remy's professor hid Magneto from the government because he's more than arrogant enough to think he knew better how to deal with him. They say they caught Remy; they're trying to use that to blackmail me. You just nominated yourself as my go between. Henri will contact you with the details. Now let's have a pleasant little chat and you'll come by again tomorrow." 

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	13. Government Intervention: 5 of 6

**Government Intervention**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Warning: This part includes spoilers for "Ultimate War" #3. 

Part 5/6 

Logan paused, his nostrils flaring. "Hold up 'Ro," he said. 

The white haired weather witch glanced around the street fearfully, half expecting hostile government agents to come boiling out of the pavement at any moment. 

A surprised and concerned frown etched into his face, Logan turned into an alley. Ororo stuck close to him, even when he pulled up a manhole cover and dropped into the murky tunnel beneath the street. 

Several meters from the manhole, Logan turned a corner leading into a small alcove. Ororo squeaked in alarm at the sound of movement and the sight of two glowing red eyes. 

An eerie glow pushed back the gloom, outlining a familiar form. 

"Easy Remy, it's just us," Logan said, his voice low and soothing. 

Remy blinked and squinted like a newborn trying to focus. The boy was huddled in a corner, dressed in muddy, torn hospital scrubs. His feet were bare and he was shaking. 

"Logan?" he asked disbelievingly then laughed. Storm shivered at the edge of hysteria and shock in his voice. After a few moments his laughter dissolved into hiccups. 

Being careful not to make any sudden moves Logan approached the boy. Uncertain of what to expect, gritting his teeth slightly, he reached through the glowing nimbus surrounding Remy and put a reassuring hand on the boy's arm. A few ragged fragments of Remy's power ran up his arm, singing hair and heating skin but doing no real damage. Then Remy pulled his power back in and the glow that had lit the tunnel disappeared. 

"That's a good boy," Logan said. "Are ya hurt?" 

Remy shook his head. 

"Can ya walk?" 

"Oui, I t'ink." 

"That's good, we'll get ya to the safe house, get some dry clothes, ya can sleep, you'll be good as new 'fore ya know it," Logan promised. 

Remy staggered slightly as the older man pulled him to his feet. Logan pulled the boy's arm over his shoulder giving him some support. 

Storm moved ahead of the pair, her eyes darting about as she scanned their surrounding for danger. "Did they, did anyone follow you?" she asked. 

"Non..." Remy's voice drifted off with his thoughts until Logan tugged him forward. "Made dem not want dis boy... easy to 'scape dat way," he finished. 

He moved tentatively as if walking through a thick fog, uncertain that the ground would be there when his foot came down. 

Painstakingly, the trio made their way back to Xavier's safe house. 

"Did you get the sniffers this time?" Hank asked without looking up. 

"Give up the attitude Henry," Ororo snapped tossing a bag at him. "We've got bigger problems." 

"Remy?" Hank exclaimed recognizing the boy stumbling beside Logan. "What's he doing here?" 

"Save the twenty questions for later," Logan said. "Chuck, time for yer channeling a medic thing!" 

"Oh my," Xavier exclaimed. "Between events at the Hellfire club and Magneto's return, Remy's anticipated arrival slipped my mind." 

"Well ain't that just dandy," Logan growled. "I think there's something wrong with his eyes." 

Remy's wandering gaze paused on the Blackbird curiously. "Dat'd make a nice boom," he commented cocking his head to the side. 

"I'd rather you didn't," Xavier replied calmly. "Logan says you're having a difficult time seeing?" 

"Non, oui. Seeing de energy, de potential real bon. Not seeing de surface too good dough," Remy explained. "Not 'less I t'ink real hard 'bout it." 

****** ****** ****** 

Jean-Luc strode into the Triskelion a manila folder in his hand. "Tell your boss I got his ransom price here." 

The receptionist stared at him blankly. 

" 'Llow me to translate," Jean-Luc sighed. "Call Nick Fury, tell him Jean-Luc Lebeau be here wid information he be interested in wid regards to de mutant situation an' I want to seem 'M nephew in exchange. Dat bettah chere?" 

"Do you have an appointment?" the woman asked. "If not I think there are more appropriate channels to go through. General Fury is a very busy person." 

One of the security guards standing at the lobby door recognized Jean-Luc from his earlier meeting. "Call," she told the receptionist. 

Ten minutes later Jean-Luc was escorted upstairs. 

"I'm glad you decided to be reasonable," Fury said accepting the folder. He glanced through it. "This is nice but it's not what I asked for." 

"It's information 'bout five of Magneto's cells, mais a summary of it," Jean-Luc replied. "He's de one yo' should be fightin' anyway." 

"We already took out three of these," Fury said with a shrug. 

"The details on de other two be wort' one teenager," Jean-Luc replied. "We both know dis be true. So why waste m' time?" 

"I've got other sources on Magneto. What I need is a lead on Xavier," Fury said. "I think this particular teenager is worth that to you." 

"I won' argue dat," Jean-Luc admitted. "Mais yo' get rein else from me 'til I see Remy." 

"Doesn't work that way." 

"Did yo' kill him?" Jean-Luc asked quietly. " 'Cause dat be de conclusion I be forced to work under 'less yo' show him to me." 

"I swear we haven't hurt the boy," Fury stated firmly as the lights flickered. 

A man announced: "Whoops. Sorry about that, people. Some kind of glitch with the generator going on. We've switched over to backup while we figure out what happened," over the intercom. 

A moment later the lights were gone again, this time they didn't come back. Jean-Luc and Fury exchanged a glance and moved away from the doors and windows taking up a defensive stance along with the security guards who'd accompanied Jean-Luc to the General's office. 

When the sound of machine gun fire echoed through the halls, along with reports that Magneto was the building, Fury drew a pistol and tossed Jean-Luc a second one. "I'm not going to stop you from defending yourself against him," he explained. 

The thief quickly checked the weapon over, priming it to fire. 

After what seemed like an eternity the building's generator came back up, quickly followed by a number of urgent reports. The head of the security guards turned to Fury, "General, Quicksilver is down and.." he glanced at Jean-Luc and trailed off. 

Jean-Luc coolly aimed his pistol at Fury; in a second the guards had him in a Mexican standoff. "They won' be fast enough," Jean-Luc said. "Yo' say Remy ain't hurt, mais yo' won' prove it. Why should I believe yo'?" 

"I'm telling the truth. You shoot me, they'll shoot you and the kid will get shipped off with the next lot of terrorist to rot in prison for the rest of his life," Fury said. "Co-operate and everything works out fine for both of us." 

"Magneto jus' waltzed into your headquarters, did whatevah it was he came to do and left easy as yo' please, an' yo're still worried 'bout de X-Men," Jean-Luc said shaking his head at the insanity of the situation, as he surrendered the pistol. "I've placed people inside his Brotherhood, he's collectin' every mutant he can get his hands on. I'll give yo' everyt'ing I get on him, all I want is Remy." 

"No deal," Fury said, a hint of regret in his voice. 

"Den we got rien to discuss," Jean-Luc said. 

The guards looked to Fury for instructions. "Let him go," he said. 

****** ****** ****** 

Remy blinked slowly then stretched, luxuriating in the feeling of waking up somewhere safe for the time since arriving in New York. The ceiling above him was off white and the air was clear, rather than both of them being a glittering tapestry of greater and lesser potential energy with brighter swirls of emotion moving through it. 

"Hey kid, you a little more together today?" Logan asked standing in the door. His voice was subdued and his posture reluctant. 

"Oui, feelin' much bettah. M' eyes are workin' right 'gain," Remy said. "It be easier to charge t'ings when I can see what I be doin' an' what I have to work wid. Mais I'd rather see normal." 

"That's good," Logan sighed. "There's something I gotta talk to you about. Cyclops is dead." 

For a moment Remy just stared. "Non, yo're lyin'." 

"Remy," Logan said. 

"Yo' don' feel anyt'ing! How can he be dead an' yo' not care?" Remy insisted. 

"I've seen a lot of people die. I know you saw him as a big brother and... I'm sorry Remy, I would have saved him if I could." 

"Non!" Remy cried. "Yo' should be angry!" 

"At who?" 

"Whoevah's to blame!" 

"Remy, a mountain fell on him," Logan said. "There ain't no one to be mad at." 

"Yo' didn' save him," Remy exclaimed. "Yo' should feel worse." 

"Kid, I've been around the block too many times to torture myself 'bout things I can't control, people die everyday." 

"Dis ain't people! Dis is Scott we be talkin' 'bout!" Remy yelled. 

"I'm sorry you're hurtin'," Logan repeated. "But you can't expect me to feel the same. Cyclops and I weren't friends." 

"Go 'way," Remy whispered closing his eyes and curling up on the bed. 

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	14. Government Intervention: 6 of 6

**Government Intervention**

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the Marvel, I'm not making any money.

Part 6/6 

"They don't have Remy," Jean-Luc said speaking in French again. He trusted the noise of the crowds to shield his conversation from the men tailing him, but didn't want a casual listener eves dropping either. 

"Is that a good thing?" Belle asked as they walked along the busy street. "Obviously they don't think we can find him if they lied about that." 

"He might be dead," Jean-Luc said hesitantly. 

"Non," Belle protested. "Remy can't be dead. If dey hurt him I'll kill everyone of dem." 

"French," Jean-Luc hissed to the distressed girl. 

"You'll help me," Belle said. "I know what happened to the last person who hurt your family. 

Jean-Luc nodded, but said "We have to trust that he's alive until we have no other choices. Perhaps they're arrogant enough to assume if he's hidden too well for them to find we can't find him either. But they don't know Remy; you and I do." 

"I'll tell Henri," Belle said. "We'll find him." 

"Good girl, I can see why Remy likes you. You aren't bad for an Assassin." 

"And you're passing fair for a Thief," Belle replied cheekily. 

****** ****** ****** 

Remy sat curled quietly in the corner of the couch, watching as the majority of the X-Men left to implement Xavier's plan to talk with Magneto. 

"Trust him," Xavier had said. He said he'd never given them a reason to doubt his judgment. 

A harsh, painful laugh, almost a sob forced its way out of Remy's chest. Scott was dead, killed following Xavier's orders, if that wasn't enough reason to doubt his judgment... Mere hours after Scott and Logan had fought each other Xavier had sent them off on a mission together and Scott hadn't come back. 

Remy curled more tightly around the ball of pain in his chest wanting the rest to not be real, but he and Jean both sensed it. There was something wrong with Logan's story. 

Wolverine's mind had been conditioned to be impervious to telepathic scans but Remy was something different and according to Jean the Hellfire Club had made her something more than a telepath when they'd awakened the Phoenix. 

Remy couldn't believe Logan could feel so little regret over Scott's death if he'd truly tried to save him. Jean said he'd let Scott die. 

Remy pulled his knees in closer to his chest, wanting to disappear into himself. The first two people he'd trusted, looked up to... The ugly laughter that seemed to have replaced his tears erupted again... He'd adored them. In Scott he'd found an older brother. In Logan a mentor and protector. After Sinister's betrayal Remy had believed he'd never trust again. Never leave himself open to that sort of mistake. But he'd trusted them now both were gone. Scott dead. Logan to blame. 

And Xavier. Xavier who said trust me and led them to ruination. Xavier who cared more about a dream than he ever would about a person. 

There was nothing left for him here. No one left that he cared enough about to stay for. No one left to trust. Not Jean, who Scott had loved, she trusted Xavier implicitly. Not Ororo or Hank, they couldn't even trust themselves, didn't believe their thoughts were their own. Peter kept himself apart, outside of a fight he barely counted. Kitty was new, he didn't know her, she was a child, chronologically not quite two years younger than Remy, in every other way a life time younger. She mattered less than Peter. More than that she'd been on the mission with Scott when he'd died. No reason to stay, every reason to go. 

Remy waited until Peter and Hank were occupied with their own concerns then he slipped past them to the secure com line Beast had set up. He needed to get away from SHEILD, from New York, from vengeful angels, away from the X-Men. 

He didn't know that he could trust anyone anymore but Jean-Luc would take him back to New Orleans, take him outside of the search radius, from there he could disappear. 

When Henri Lebeau answered the phone Remy begged, "Mon cuz, I wanna come home." 

****** ****** ****** 

One glance told Jean-Luc that the man he was facing was a functionary. 

"No one cares about your information anymore Lebeau. It's too late, we aren't in the market anymore," the man said. 

"Yo're loss," Jean-Luc replied stiffly, turning and walking out of the building. "Serves yo' right if Magneto kills yo' all." 

Several blocks away Belle fell into step beside him. "I was right, somet'ing happened, non?" she asked. 

"Oui, dey ain't even botherin' to follow me anymore," he said taking out his cell phone. A few moments later Henri answered. "Mon fils, start checkin' de prison camps," Jean-Luc said. "I t'ing de X-Men been captured. De government ain't lookin' for dem anymore." 

"Don' mattah, Remy ain't wid dem," Henri replied. "I jus' talked wid him." 

****** ****** ****** 

Betty Ross hesitated on the threshold of Fury's office. "General if you have a moment?" she asked. 

"Go ahead," he said waving her in. 

"It's about the Worthington boy. We need some good publicity right now, something to prove mutants who register have nothing to fear from us, and that kid's a gold mine of potential. We rehabilitate him, fix up the blue skin and the metal wings, then ship him back to his parents. The news agencies would eat it up and getting his family behind us wouldn't hurt at all the next time we're looking for supplemental funding." 

"Get some shrinks working on his head but leave the wings alone," Fury said. "We can't put a known mutant on the public team, even as a PR stunt, still Worthington has too much potential like he is to let him walk." 

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